EigenLayer has announced the mainnet launch of EigenLayer and EigenDA. It further strengthens the community of Ethereum validators who often restake on EigenLayer. Also, this comes to fulfill the rising demand of the community which comprises operators, rollups, and AVSs on top of restakers.
Some of the new functionalities which make their debut are delegation by restakers to an operator of their choice, registration for operators with EigenLayer & option to run AVSs, and registration for AVSs with the protocol (currently in beta). The mainnet launch excludes an in-protocol payment segment and slashing. They are intended to be merged following the marketplace’s development and stabilization.
The launch is being hailed since it brings several benefits – hyper scalability, cost flexibility, ease of integration, and native token staking.
For starters, hyper scalability includes over 1,000 transactions on rollups. The mainnet launch has been future-proofed by design to back the scalability. Cost flexibility refers to setting prices based on demand and bandwidth that has been reserved. Also, payments by native tokens are likely to be considered under cost flexibility.
Native token staking is expected to be rolled out in the near future. When rolled out, it will help rollups customize EigenDA so that they can use their native token to verify DA-data availability. Ease of integration brings some of the giants on the network for a seamless experience. Polygon CDK and Starkware will soon make an appearance but the available ones are OP Stack and Arbtirum Orbit. They can be readily deployed through RAASs.
EigenDA aims to target many services and applications such as social network transactions, onchain order books, real-time gaming, and AI coprocessors storing outputs in DA. Most of the rollups are currently under development, and an official announcement is anticipated shortly.
EigenLayer, in the announcement, has called this an important launch, adding that there is still a lot to explore as they go live on Mainnet. Upcoming features to look forward to are slashing and in-protocol payments. EigenLayer has expressed excitement about the development while committing to an early launch of AVSs.
EigenLayer is expecting to have a high operator turnover as more AVS, operators, and delegations come online.
The development came days after EigenLayer announced it would enter into a partnership with a16z crypto. The objective stated was that the partnership would enable both of them to supercharge the ecosystems with better use cases in terms of quality and quantity. Users receive benefits in the end from safer and more useful crypto products.
It dates back to the early days of February 2024 – when they confirmed their commitment to research, including open source and public goods contributions. Another commitment includes long-term engagement and support across the industry.
EigenLayer and EigenDA have made their way to the mainnet, much in fulfillment of the demands raised by the community of operators, restakers, rollups, and AVSs.