EigenLayer is a set of smart contracts on Ethereum that allows consensus layer Ether (ETH) stakeholders to opt in to validating new software modules built on top of the Ethereum ecosystem. Stakers opt in by granting the EigenLayer smart contracts the ability to impose additional slashing conditions on their staked ETH, allowing an extension of cryptoeconomic security. By opting in to EigenLayer, stakeholders can validate for many types of modules including consensus protocols, data availability layers, virtual machines, keeper networks, oracle networks, bridges, threshold cryptography schemes, and trusted execution environments. Instead of fragmenting security between modules, EigenLayer aggregates ETH security across all of them. This increases the security of the decentralized applications (DApps) that rely on the modules. In addition, the value of Ether increases due to new fee-sharing opportunities from these manifold modules.
EigenLayer also acts as a staging system for Ethereum, where new innovations such as Danksharding and proposer/builder separation can be battle-tested in manifold variations before the best ideas can be integrated back into Ethereum. Finally, EigenLayer ushers in a new era of permissionless innovation, in which innovators do not need to build their own trust networks in order to implement new distributed validation modules, but can instead rely on the security and decentralization provided by ETH restakers via EigenLayer.
With EigenLayer, Ethereum stakeholders can help secure many services by restaking their staked ETH and opting-in to many services simultaneously, providing pooled security. Reusing ETH to provide security across many services reduces capital costs for a staker to participate and significantly increases the trust guarantees to individual services.
Anyone building a new decentralized service for Ethereum must bootstrap a new trust network to secure their system, fragmenting security. EigenLayer solves this problem by enabling any service, regardless of its composition (e.g. EVM-compatibility), to tap into the pooled security of Ethereum's stakeholders, creating an environment for permissionless innovation and free-market governance.
