EigenLayer bolsters restaking with Bitcoin yield, P2P.org payouts

From cointelegraph by Alex O'Donnell

EigenLayer, Ethereum’s largest restaking platform, is adding more restaking options, including wrapped Bitcoin  BTC$68,887  yield and payouts from node operator P2P.org, according to separate announcements on Nov. 4.

ARPA Network, a protocol built on EigenLayer, will start paying rewards to depositors of uniBTC, a restaked BTC wrapper, the protocol  said  in a blog post.

“By adding uniBTC as a supported asset, ARPA opens up new liquidity pathways and reward opportunities for BTC holders,” ARPA said.

Meanwhile, P2P.org — EigenLayer’s largest professional validator, or “operator” — distributed $2.2 million in Ether  ETH$2,437.09  to restakers on Nov. 4, it  said .

Related:  EigenLayer eyes consumer adoption post EIGEN unlock, founder says

Restaking involves taking a token that has already been staked — posted as collateral with a validator in exchange for rewards — and using it to secure other protocols simultaneously. 

EigenLayer secures dozens of third-party protocols — dubbed actively validated services (AVSs) — with more than $10 billion of restaked collateral,  according  to DefiLlama. 

In October, EigenLayer launched a rewards program in EIGEN, the protocol’s native token, in a bid to accelerate restaking adoption.

“Stakers will get programmatic rewards depending on how many AVSs they serve, and AVSs will pay fees to stakers and operators. The more AVSs pay, the more value gets allocated,” EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan  told Cointelegraph in October .

ARPA uses EigenLayer to securely generate random numbers for applications ranging from gaming to lotteries to onchain governance and more. It was  among the first AVSs  to start paying restakers.

P2P.org is responsible for upward of $540 million worth of restaked collateral as of Nov. 5, according to the developer’s website.

It competes with dozens of other operators, including staking-as-a-service providers such as Figment, Blockdaemon and Ankr. 

EigenLayer is prioritizing onboarding consumer Web3 applications after EIGEN’s Oct. 1 unlock, Kannan said.

On Oct. 23, RedStone — one of the largest oracle providers —  launched a data-validation service  on EigenLayer.

The EIGEN unlock was among the most  highly-anticipated in 2024 and puts pressure on EigenLayer to scale protocol revenues from AVSs.

The token trades at a fully diluted market capitalization of approximately $4 billion, according to  data  from CoinMarketCap.

EIGEN is designed to secure protocols against a broader set of faults than are addressable using existing proof-of-stake tokens, such as ETH,  according  to EigenLayer.

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