EigenLayer, the Ethereum restaking protocol, announced the mainnet launch in its official statement on X.
The EigenLayer protocol allows users to re-stake validators' Ethereum stakes locally or through liquid staking tokens, allocating these funds to economically secure third-party protocols.
About a year ago, Eigen Labs closed a $50 million Series A funding round led by Blockchain Capital and with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Polychain Capital, among others.
The project is also expected to organize a token airdrop event, but no new developments regarding this were included in the official statement.
EigenLayer's claim is that it allows startup blockchain protocols to borrow Ethereum's security. The platform allows users to take the ETH they have staked with Ethereum and “re-stake” it with a much larger pool of ETH than other users.
This re-stake ETH is used to secure other networks called actively authenticated services (AVSs), which can be anything from blockchain bridges to exchanges or oracles.
*This is not investment advice.