EigenLayer, After Touching Off Restaking Frenzy, Plans Own EIGEN token

Eigenlayer, the restaking protocol that has racked up $15.7 billion in deposits, released its token whitepaper Monday, confirming plans for an EIGEN token.

According to a blog post written by the Eigen Foundation, the non-profit supporting the protocol, there will be a total supply of about 1.67 billion EIGEN tokens, and 45% of those will go toward the EigenLayer community.

The 45% is divided into three subgroups, with stakedrops, future community initiatives and ecosystem development each receiving buckets of 15%.

In the first season of the “stakedrop,” as the team described the planned token release, Eigen Foundation will distribute 5% of the token supply to users based on their staking activities from March 15. The claim for these EIGEN tokens opens on May 10, and will close after 120 days.

According to the foundation, investors will be allocated 29.5% of the token supply, and 25.5% will go towards early contributors. Both groups will have a three-year lock period, “with a full lock in year one, followed by a linear unlock of 4% of their total allocation each month over the next two years.”

In addition, at the launch of the EIGEN token, users will be able to secure EigenDA, Eigenlayer’s Actively Validated Service (AVS) for data availability, with their EIGEN tokens. Other AVSs are expected to follow, the foundation wrote.

EigenLayer is at the core of a new trend known as “restaking,” where users’ ether (ETH) tokens that are deposited or “staked” as security on the Ethereum blockchain can be repurposed to secure additional networks or protocols.

That restaked ETH is used collectively to secure these auxiliary AVS networks on EigenLayer.