EigenLayer to begin 'slashing' restakers in April

EigenLayer plans to commencement “slashing” restakers connected April 17, resulting successful the Ethereum restaking protocol’s “first feature-complete iteration,” it said successful an April 2 announcement. 

Implementing slashing volition people EigenLayer’s last measurement toward establishing the protocol arsenic “infrastructure for a caller procreation of verifiable apps and services built connected the Verifiable Cloud,” it said successful a post connected the X platform.

In 2024, EigenLayer started distributing rewards — including emissions of its autochthonal EIGEN token — to incentivize restakers. However, slashing has truthful acold been constricted to EigenLayer’s testnets.

Once slashing is live, node operators and restakers volition beryllium capable to voluntarily “opt-in,” resulting successful a gradual modulation for users, EigenLayer said successful a blog post.

Slashing starts connected EigenLayer’s mainnet soon. Source: EigenLayer

Related: EigenLayer eyes user adoption station EIGEN unlock, laminitis says

Gradual roll-out

Launched successful 2023, EigenLayer secures third-party protocols — dubbed actively validated services (AVSs) — against a excavation of “restaked” cryptocurrencies utilized arsenic collateral. 

Restaking involves taking a token that has already been staked — posted arsenic collateral with a validator successful speech for rewards — and utilizing it to unafraid different protocols simultaneously. 

Slashing is the superior method for securing proof-of-stake protocols — including Ethereum arsenic good arsenic “restaking” protocols specified arsenic EigenLayer — and involves penalizing a network’s node operators for mediocre show oregon misbehavior.

“If Operators bash not conscionable the conditions set, the AVS whitethorn penalize them. But, if the Operator runs the work successfully, AVSs tin reward the Operator’s show and incentivize circumstantial activity,” EigenLayer said successful an April 3 blog post. 

This “allows for a escaped marketplace wherever Operators tin gain rewards for their enactment and AVSs tin motorboat verifiable services,” the station said. 

EigenLayer’s full worth locked (TVL) implicit time. Source: DeFILlama

Growing ecosystem

Upward of 30 AVSs are already unrecorded connected EigenLayer’s mainnet, and dozens much are being developed.

They see EigenDA — tally by EigenLayer developer Eigen Labs — and ARPA Network, a protocol specializing successful trustless randomization.

In October, EigenLayer unlocked its autochthonal token, EIGEN. It is designed arsenic a much flexible enactment for securing consensus-based protocols than different proof-of-stake tokens, specified arsenic Ether, according to EigenLayer.

EigenLayer is prioritizing onboarding crypto-native apps successful segments specified arsenic decentralized concern (DeFi) and gaming earlier expanding beyond Web3, laminitis Sreeram Kannan told Cointelegraph successful October. 

“We’re starting with the inside-out approach, focusing connected high-throughput user apps similar DeFi and gaming, but erstwhile we turn a small bigger and person captious mass, we’ll spell extracurricular and commencement targeting broader user markets,” Kannan said.

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