EigenLayer, a decentralized restaking protocol built on Ethereum (ETH), has made significant announcements, paving the way for new developments within the crypto ecosystem.
The protocol unveiled its native token, EIGEN, which the newly formed Eigen Foundation will distribute. Alongside this, EigenLayer introduced a major plan for an airdrop and released a comprehensive new Whitepaper.
EigenLayer Unveils EIGEN With Novel Mechanism
According to the protocol’s announcement, the introduction of the EIGEN token brings forth a complementary mechanism designed to address “intersubjective” faults, which cannot be resolved through ETH restaking alone.
By expanding ETH restaking, EigenLayer positions ETH as the Universal Objective Work Token, while the universality of EIGEN makes it the Universal Intersubjective Work Token. EIGEN’s universality is reportedly aimed at allowing it to fork and slash for intersubjective errors committed by EIGEN stakers in any AVS (Automated Verification System) within the protocol.
To ensure widespread adoption of EIGEN across applications, EigenLayer has designed an application-independent mechanism to maintain the system’s cryptoeconomic security.
In EigenLayer, EIGEN staking and ETH restaking play complementary roles. EIGEN addresses safety properties through objective slashing, and ETH restaking ensures liveness and censorship-resistance properties dependent on stake decentralization.
The launch of EIGEN also introduces intersubjective staking, marking a significant milestone for the protocol and the Ethereum ecosystem. However, due to its newly introduced design, the concept requires widespread adoption and discussion among ecosystem participants.
At launch, the Eigen token will have a total supply of 1.67 billion tokens, with the Foundation allocating 45% of the tokens to the community. This allocation is further divided into staked drops, community initiatives, and ecosystem development.
Investors will reportedly receive almost 30% of the tokens, while early contributors will receive over 25%. Both these groups are subject to a three-year lockup period for their allocations.
A complete lock will be in place during the first year, followed by a gradual release of their total holdings at a rate of 4% per month over the subsequent two years.
EIGEN Token Launches Meta-Setup Phase
While the initial implementation of intersubjective staking at launch mirrors only a limited extent of the full protocol, several parameters still need to be determined for its full actuation.
To address this, EIGEN is being launched in a meta-setup phase, serving as a call to action for researchers, experts, and the broader community to engage in public discourse.
As EigenLayer announced, this collaborative effort aims to help define the necessary parameters to make the protocol and its interaction with the rest of the Ethereum ecosystem as effective as possible.
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