Mainnet Launch Announcement: EigenLayer ∞ EigenDA

The Start of Infinite Sum Games

Not long ago, EigenLayer was just an idea. Restaking launched on Ethereum mainnet in June 2023. In the ensuing months, we’ve been deeply inspired by the crypto community’s enthusiasm for the EigenLayer vision. Today, over 4.1 million ETH are restaked on EigenLayer. In the past few weeks, 70% of all new Ethereum validators restaked to EigenLayer. The LRT ecosystem is booming. The EigenLayer and EigenDA Goerli and Holesky testnets have been successful, with hundreds of active operators and dozens of onboarded rollups. We’ve heard you loud and clear: you want EigenLayer!

Today, we deliver. With the help of the entire community – restakers, operators, AVSs, and rollups – we are proud to launch EigenLayer and EigenDA on mainnet.

Visit the upgraded EigenLayer App and Documentation, and help us continue to supercharge open innovation on Ethereum. 

New functionality as of today:

• Restakers can delegate their entire stake to an Operator of their choice.
• Operators can register with EigenLayer and opt in to run AVSs.
• AVSs can register with the protocol, starting with EigenDA (currently in beta).
  • AVSs are actively validated services - middleware, services, chains, networks, and PoS systems - secured by restakers and run by operators.

Until now, restaking in EigenLayer meant simply depositing LSTs, or setting validator withdrawal credentials to an EigenPod. Now that operators and an AVS (EigenDA) are live, being an active restaker means delegating to one of the top 200 operators running AVSs.

Over the next few weeks, we expect high operator turnover in the top 200 active set as new operators, delegations, and AVSs come online. Please make an informed decision when delegating. You can always redelegate to a different operator later, but will have to wait seven days to complete the redelegation.

Importantly, this mainnet launch does not include: (1) in-protocol payments from AVSs to operators; and (2) slashing. We are allowing the EigenLayer marketplace to develop and stabilize before introducing in-protocol payments and slashing to mainnet later this year.

Details for Restakers

In order to restake to an AVS (e.g. EigenDA), you must delegate your entire stake to an operator that has opted into that AVS. If an operator opts into multiple AVSs, the stake delegated to the operator secures all of the AVSs. While delegation is non-custodial (operators do not hold your stake), the EigenLayer protocol does not guarantee the suitability of any operator to run AVS software properly.

In the short-term, EigenLayer does not present the risk of slashing while operators establish themselves in the ecosystem and harden their processes. Eventually operators will be subject to slashing if they do not run AVSs correctly.

The LRT DAO would manage your delegation if you restaked in EigenLayer via an LRT. Each LRT is different, and at a different stage of readiness to manage restaker delegations. Since none of the LRTs are created by or affiliated with Eigen Labs, please contact each LRT for their plans regarding restaker delegations.

Learn more via the delegation documentation.

Details for Operators

New operators can run AVSs in two steps:

1. Register as a node operator on EigenLayer: Node Operator Installation
2. Opt in to run each AVS, starting with EigenDA: EigenDA Operator Mainnet Installation

EigenDA's active operator set at any given time comprises the largest 200 operators (by delegated stake) that have attempted to register. This operator set will expand over time; we've limited it to 200 for now due to a gas cost constraint on EigenDA's signature verification capability and to ensure a smooth and secure protocol launch. We're actively working on solutions that allow us to expand our operator set greatly. To learn more about how the active operator set is managed, read about the EigenDA Churn Approver.

Details for Rollups Using EigenDA

Onboarding rollups to EigenDA on the mainnet will be available after the operator set and restaker delegations stabilize. In the meantime, please continue to test on Holesky. We will announce when rollups can be onboarded to EigenDA on mainnet.

Learn more via the EigenDA documentation.

Details for AVSs

There are 10+ AVSs actively testing on Holesky testnet, and we will announce more EigenLayer AVSs on mainnet soon. If you’re interested in launching as an AVS on EigenLayer, please contact via the AVS Intake Form. 

Learn more via the AVS Developer documentation.

EigenDA: The Endgame for Data Availability

We often refer to EigenDA as “the first AVS on EigenLayer,” but it is much more than that. We are building towards a future in which EigenDA is the most performant, scalable, and cost-effective solution to the crypto industry’s bottleneck problems of data availability, throughput, and storage. It is intended to be the endgame for data availability, and the key to eliminating Ethereum blockspace constraints.

EigenDA is also integral to the long-term EigenLayer vision: in order to have the ability to penalize bad behavior, the protocol must have access to the data associated with related transactions.

Benefits for rollups include:

• Hyper scalability: Future-proof by design, to enable a world in which there are 1,000x+ more transactions on rollups.
• Cost flexibility: Pricing that allows for on-demand and reserved bandwidth options, as well as native token payments.
• Ease of integration: Integrations with OP Stack and Arbitrum Orbit are readily available for deployment via RAASs such as AltLayer, Conduit, Caldera, and Gelato. Integrations for other stacks, such as Polygon CDK and Starkware, are in the works.
• (Future) Native token staking: Rollups can customize EigenDA to use their native token in a separate quorum to verify data availability.

We believe that there are as many possibilities for rollups as there are internet applications. By ushering in an era of cost-effective rollup scalability, we hope EigenDA plays a role in enabling a new universe of previously impossible services and applications. These might include the following:

• Completely onchain orderbooks
• Real-time gaming
• Social network transactions
• AI coprocessors storing outputs in DA
• Atomic data swaps, where DA serves as escrow node
• … and much more!

We are thrilled to be already working with a number of rollups planning to deploy on EigenDA. Over the coming weeks and months, we look forward to highlighting these flagship partners to the EigenLayer and EigenDA communities.

With EigenDA’s unprecedented performance, we encourage you to rethink what’s possible when it comes to building application-specific rollups. The paradigm shifts, starting today. If you’d like to deploy your rollup with EigenDA, please contact the team via the EigenDA Contact Form.

To get started on testnet, read the EigenDA documentation.

EigenLayer is Open Innovation

The mission of EigenLayer is to build coordination engines that maximally empower open innovation. This mission has a beginning, but no end. We consider all of us players in an infinite sum, infinite horizon game, empowered by Ethereum.

This launch is an important step forward for EigenLayer, but there is much further to go: restaking, operators, and EigenDA are live on mainnet; in-protocol payments and slashing are in development; and many more AVSs are launching soon, alongside other major announcements. We’re absolutely thrilled to continue on this journey with your support, and look forward to building the future together for many years to come.

Please find official EigenLayer and EigenDA resources below:

• EigenLayer App (app.eigenlayer.xyz)
• Documentation (docs.eigenlayer.xyz)
• Discord (discord.com/invite/eigenlayer)
• Immunefi Bug Bounties (immunefi.com/bounty/eigenlayer)
• X: @eigenlayer, @eigen_da