Bankless: Re-staking Summer is coming, how big will the EigenLayer airdrop be?

Written by:Jack Inabinet, Bankless

Compiled by: Lucy, BlockBeats

Editor's note: On January 25, according to the EigenLayer official website, EigenLayer TVL reached 806,700 ETH, worth approximately $1.788 billion. In addition, the team is introducing a new method for allocating re-staking points, which will set the upper limit of re-staking points allocated to any LST, LRT or personal deposit to 33% of the total future issuance.

Bankless analyst Jack Inabinet explored the concept behind EigenLayer in depth and introduced its points mechanism in detail, analyzing its potential airdrop value. BlockBeats translated the original article as follows:

There are only a handful of crypto projects that have created at least a billion dollars in wealth for early adopters right out of the gate with their airdrops, but we’re likely about to see another popular protocol join that list.

The restaking promise becomes a transformative cryptoeconomic primitive, and EigenLayer is at the forefront of efforts to make it a reality.

Today, we’ll explore why EigenLayer is a game-changer, give examples of the types of services built on top of it, explain why EigenLayer is the next billion-dollar airdrop opportunity, and estimate how big an airdrop you can expect by participating in EigenLayer.

Why is EigenLayer a revolution?Xiaobai NavigationA revolutionary change maker?

EigenLayer has created a decentralized marketplace that allows Ethereum holders to “restake” theirToken, providing other crypto applications beyond the Ethereum networkSafetysex.

As a programmable trust network, EigenLayer allows developers to create decentralized networks while avoiding the difficulties of launching and operating their own trust network.

Since protocol developers no longer need to worry about running a network of validating nodes, they can focus more on important matters, such as building their applications, rather than working too hard to support the staking tokens that secure their decentralized networks.Tokenmarket value.

This lowers the barrier to entry for creating your own decentralized network and empowers cryptocurrencies.SafetyThe long tail of apps has more power.

Protocols using EigenLayer are “renting” their economies from existing Ethereum stakersSafetyThis reuse of staked Ethereum to provideSafetyThis innovative approach brings capital efficiency to staking, effectively reducing the cost of securing additional networks while maintaining strong trust guarantees for individual services.

For EigenLayer re-stakers, the protocol offers two opportunities for enhanced yields. Not only can re-stakers earn enhanced yields by securing other networks, but they are also eligible for airdrops from protocols that use their services.

What services can be built on EigenLayer?

EigenLayer Active Verification Service (AVS) refers to any system that requires its own distributed network of verification nodes for verification and relies on EigenLayer to provide security. The term "AVS" is actually a real umbrella term that can be applied to any decentralized verification application within the broad range that the protocol can serve.

Re-stakers delegate their stake to AVS operators who operate EigenLayer’s infrastructure and use the re-stakers’ Ethereum as security for their services in exchange for the ability to use this staked Ethereum as collateral.

The most famous AVS is EigenLayer's data availability solution EigenDA.

While EigenDA is not live yet, it is expected to significantly reduce the cost of publishing data on rollups and is expected to provide a more cost-effective solution than the leading DA solution Celestia, thanks to the advantages of re-staking versus operating an independent L1 in the Celestia model. Blockchaincost-effectiveness.

However, EigenLayer’s ability to protect the network goes far beyond the Ethereum ecosystem, and multiple applications are being built on the Cosmos ecosystem.

For those who do not wish to launch their ownTokenThe Cosmos Hub (ATOM) has long been the dominant cross-chain security provider for networks of blockchain and validating node sets, but EigenLayer hopes to take that crown soon.

Ethereum os and Lay3r are two AVSs that will enable the Cosmos chain to launch its L1 using EigenLayer’s existing trust network, providing a more attractive (and cost-effective) security alternative to the Cosmos Hub.

Just like EigenLayer's AVS can be used for L1 and L2 BlockchainAs well as providing security, they can also verify a variety of other cryptographic systems, including decentralized guardian and oracle networks.

EigenLayer also aims to improve interoperability: their fast finality AVS will enable any transaction to benefit from instant settlement, and bridge protocols can leverage AVS to use EigenLayer’s re-collateralized Ethereum network as collateral, enabling settlement to reduce waiting time during user transaction transmission.

Although the intersection of AI and cryptography is only beginning to be explored, EigenLayer may become an important player in unifying these two environments. AI Interfaces may soon be able to leverage AVS to verify the integrity of their algorithms by generatingZero knowledge proof, and the capital efficiency of EigenLayer’s re-staking model makes it more cost-effective than alternative ZKML technologies.

How big will the EigenLayer airdrop be?

It’s hard enough to accurately value crypto protocols with actual cash flows, let alone protocols that don’t exist yet. While there is no directly comparable EigenLayer, Celestia provides a close enough competitor to base its valuation on.

Celestia’s sole use may be as a data availability layer, but the network’s TIA token currently has a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $15 billion, just below the $20 billion peak it briefly reached last week.

EigenLayer's advantage over Celestia lies in the multiple additional services it offers, and the presence of multiple revenue drivers beyond data availability, which means the market may view EigenLayer as a more attractive investment opportunity than Celestia.

Unfortunately, the evaluation of EigenLayer is affected by the fact that it is not aBlockchainnetwork, which means that EIGEN tokens cannot accumulate L1 premium as expected.

In practice, this means that EIGEN will have lower utility than TIA as it will not be an asset used to collateralize AVS, a factor that will reduce demand for the token and could result in EigenLayer trading at a lower valuation.

EigenLayer could choose to enhance the utility of EIGEN by using it as a payment token for services provided by the network. However, this is a less efficient source of demand and would be partially offset by the inevitable selling pressure from re-stakers and AVS operators who take it as compensation and want to cash out and swap it for another asset.

Taking all of these factors into account, it seems reasonable to assume that EigenLayer will trade at a similar FDV to Celestia, perhaps with a valuation of around $10 billion to $20 billion at initial launch.

While the token economics of EigenLayer are currently unknown, it doesn’t seem outlandish to further assume that they will airdrop 10% of their token supply to early users, which would easily make this a multi-billion dollar airdrop for the protocol.

What does this mean for individual depositors?

Currently, 760,000 Ethereum has been deposited in EigenLayer, and the upcoming LST cap increase will further increase the amount of Ethereum. Depositors earn one point per Ethereum staked every hour, and the total points accumulated are about 1 billion.

We have no way of knowing how many EigenLayer credits there will be, as it is unclear when the airdrop will take place and how much Ethereum will earn credits at that time, but we do know that Polymarket currently puts the probability of the EigenLayer airdrop arriving before April at just 13%.

Assuming that the EIGEN airdrop will take at least another 180 days from the time of the next deposit limit increase, and that the amount of Ethereum managed increases linearly to 1 million during this period, then approximately 4.8 billion credits will exist at the time of the airdrop.

In a valuation range of $10 billion to $20 billion, assuming 10% of the total EIGEN supply is airdropped, depositors can expect to receive $0.21 to $0.41 per credit, representing a range of $907 to $1,814 in claiming opportunities for deposited Ethereum each time EigenLayer raises its LST cap on February 5.

It is worth noting that while many assumptions must be met for this estimate to hold true, this is only the minimum allocation a non-whale depositor can expect to receive; a tiered distribution of EIGEN tokens with a maximum allocation cap would benefit smaller depositors.

How to maximize the EigenLayer airdrop opportunity?

To qualify for the EigenLayer airdrop, the first thing you need to do is set a reminder on your calendar to deposit Ethereum on February 5th.

The article comes from the Internet:Bankless: Re-staking Summer is coming, how big will the EigenLayer airdrop be?

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