Popular Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer has launched EigenDA, set to serve as a mainnet within the Ethereum ecosystem. On April 9th, the EigenLayer team announced the launch of EigenDA, the platform’s first usable validator service, on the Ethereum mainnet. The team added that over 4.1 million Ethereum have been restaked on EigenLayer and that in the past few weeks, 70% of all new Ethereum validators have been restaked according to the platform.
Significant Step from the EigenLayer Team
Restaking enables users to stake the same Ethereum on both Ethereum and other protocols. Platforms like EigenLayer leverage Ethereum’s validators and staked tokens to benefit smaller and newer blockchain networks’ security and trust systems.
EigenLayer also aims to prevent the dominance of a single stake provider by establishing a balance between neutrality, allowing free market behavior, and decentralization. Furthermore, EigenDA aims to provide hyper-scalability, cost flexibility, and ease of integration for aggregations, targeting to offer solutions for data availability on Ethereum. After the operator set and delegations stabilize, it was indicated that Rollups could join the EigenDA mainnet, with the team stating:
“In the coming weeks, as new operators, delegations, and AVSs come online, we expect high operator turnover in the first 200 active sets.”
Ethereum Ecosystem and Staking Protocols
The announcement mentioned that protocol-internal payments and cut mechanisms from AVSs to operators have not yet been included but will be added later in 2023. An AVS essentially serves as middleware or a service operating on top of the EigenLayer protocol to provide specific functionality. AVSs act as a layer between Ethereum’s execution layer and various rollups, blockchain platforms, and networks built on top of the mainnet.
According to blockchain data analysis platform DeFiLlama, EigenLayer’s total locked value is currently $13.3 billion, showing a 100% increase since the beginning of the year. The Ethereum staking ecosystem is extremely healthy, with approximately 27% of the total circulating supply currently staked.
Data from Dune Analytics indicates that this amounts to about $112 billion worth of 32.2 million Ethereum at current spot prices. Ethereum also has just over a million validators, making it one of the most secure blockchain networks in the crypto space. Lido continues to be the largest liquid stake provider, with 29% of the total staked amount, or $33.2 billion worth of Ethereum.
