The EigenLayer Question
Prompt
EigenLayer is a marketplace for decentralized trust and security. It enables Actively Validated Services (AVSs) to secure their services by utilizing a subset of Ethereum’s decentralized validator network and its high-quality staked capital. As such, it creates a win-win between its two key players - AVSs get access to high-quality decentralized security for less than if they spun up their own validators, and Ethereum restakers get additional yield on their capital.
EigenLayer has quickly grown to become the largest protocol by TVL across all chains and platforms (excluding LSTs), with $14 billion in ETH restaked. Just the protocol’s points (potentially representing a fraction of its FDV) are trading at a market cap of $500 million, and a restaking competitor, Karak, recently raised at a valuation of $1+ billion. Needless to say, there is much hype surrounding the protocol.
However, with great expectations comes great responsibility. The restaking landscape is changing quickly and some questions emerge about EigenLayer’s future.
Kunal previously worked in equity research and now considers himself a financial analyst in crypto. He specializes in valuation and bottom-up analysis for Layer-1 and DeFi protocols because he has yet to learn of a way to value NFTs.
Prior to joining Messari, Seth worked in traditional finance software and services, and has a MSc in Applied Mathematics. Seth is a Senior Research Analyst on the Enterprise Research team, and focuses on infrastructure, verifiable compute, and the AI x Crypto intersection.
Nikhil is a Researcher focused on Web3 Infrastructure and Decentralized AI. Previously he was leading BD at Upshot and prior to that was working on growing Avalanche at Ava Labs.