EigenLayer (8)

For one, I know you may be expecting some some of story to water your sense of perception, then a grand intro for the man or woman behind the innovation, the innovation itself web3nifically defined, the native token and it's use case, and of course, the heartbeat of any decentralized distributed ledger; the consensus mechanism, and lastly a comparison, how ever little it may seem to other Blockchains.

However, it's unfortunate that, we are looking at knowing a protocol and not a Blockchain, today.

So get the consensus mechanism outta ya mind cos there's certainly no consensus mechanism here whatsoever.

In a protocol, a protocol like EigenLayer, we are exploring a set of instructions not a chain of blocks.

When you understand this, the journey will be easier for ya.

At the same time, we are extremely fortunate to be exploring a new innovation in the Blockchain space gallantly making open its novel and statistically complex invention.

RESTAKING

Actually, don't mind those grammatical enunciations.... it's just a scholarly way of stressing that EigenLayer is not as simple as it sounds.

It was hard for me to understand it, but that doesn't mean that it will be hard for you to understand

If you want to read the 19 paged >>> Whitepaper

Fine.

So what is this EigenLayer?

EigenLayer is a set of rules developed on the Ethereum Blockchain that allows Ethereum Validators to RESTAKE their tokens which have been staked in Ethereum already in order to secure another dApp, layer 2 Blockchains, Oracles or other protocols which are all collectively termed modules or AVSs, Actively Validating Systems.

Someone may ask the same questions I asked, thus :

"Is EigenLayer a layer 2?"

since it is built on top of Ethereum

or

"a layer 0?"

since some source of info affirm that some devs are building their Blockchain on EigenLayer

Or

does it simply have no layer whatsoever, since it's not a Blockchain...

For me, I believe categorizing it to a layer is unnecessary since it's still in it's infancy.

Perhaps, as more documentations are made we will come to the knowledge of its categorization in the Blockchain space, or perhaps I or you may be employed and then one of us or both of us will understand all of its intricacies.

Until then, let's make do with what we have here. And by "what we have here" I mean all knowledge about EigenLayer available.

Let's simplify to the barest minimum.

Pls be imaginative for a moment.

Think of some AVSs wanting to deploy ie put their innovation or what they built to the public.

They need to find a way to ensure the security of their application or whatever they built.

They need to utilize a well-known security expert, of course, that will make people that adopt them faster

They need people to trust their application....and trust will only actualize when user's feel secure using your product.

These devs want to incorporate the security of Ethereum.

In the developers community you say that they want to bootstrap Ethereum security

The normal ways are to either build a layer 2 or build as a sidechain, however, layer 2s and sidechains cannot inherently possess the security of Ethereum completely.

This is where EigenLayer comes in.

Ethereum uses a Cryptoeconomic security model to secure its Blockchain.

Unlike, the computational-power model (I don't think that's the appropriate term btw), the Cryptoeconomic model is such that the more the value of staked assets, the more the security.

The threat to security being mitigated against is threat posed by malicious validators (in other words, Blockchain hackers).

The rationale behind this is that, the more the value of assets staked by validator's the less they will feel inclined to become malicious or attempt malicious activities because once a validator becomes malicious, and say, he validates an incorrect or invalid transaction, his staked assets will be slashed. By slashed , I mean it will be ceased from him or her. And he or she can never ever get it back.

So EigenLayer makes it possible for the security of Ethereum to be bootstrapped completely

How?

By allowing Ethereum Validators to restake their already staked Ether tokens.

Not only does this set of smart contracts make it possible for Ethereum's security be bootstrapped but it also increases the cost of corrupting the AVS.

So AVSs otherwise called modules like

• layer 2s which are consensus protocols ie they use consensus mechanisms,
• dankshardings,
• data availability layers,
• oracles,
• virtual machines for developers,
• bridges etc, can be validated by Ethereum Blockchain Validators.

There's a peculiar advantage which comes with a peculiar disadvantage to this feature that EigenLayer introduced.

The advantage is that Ethereum Validators can earn more incentives while at the same time, they stand the risk of loosing an increased percentage of what they would have lost given they become malicious.

Speaking of $EIGEN it is mainly used to take care of a peculiar issue that may arise in EigenLayer known as interobjective Attributable Faults.

They're are simply faults or inadequacies exhibited by Validators in EigenLayer which cannot be proven faulty by mathematical and cryptographic expressions.

Hence, the faults cannot be proven faulty on-chain, but can be observed off-chain.

EigenLayer's token $EIGEN will be listed on the 30th of September, 2024 according to cryptorank.

However, it's already on decentralized exchanges like uniswap and Pancakeswap where it can be traded alongside wETH and

wBNB according to some sources.

Some persons may not find this article informative if it ends without them knowing the brain behind the innovation.

EigenLayer was established in early 2021

Meet Sreeram Kannan, who as at the year 2021 was an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Washington.

Documentation

Binance Academy

Hacken

Medium

Consensys