{"id":22550,"date":"2025-04-17T13:01:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T13:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=22550"},"modified":"2025-04-17T13:01:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T13:01:51","slug":"eigenlayer-adds-key-slashing-feature-completing-original-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=22550","title":{"rendered":"EigenLayer Adds Key \u2018Slashing\u2019 Feature, Completing Original Vision"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Almost one year to the day after Ethereum protocol EigenLayer launched its \u201crestaking\u201d network to unprecedented industry fanfare, the network is finally adding a core feature that was, until now, glaringly absent: \u201cslashing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Eigen Labs hopes slashing \u2014 EigenLayer\u2019s system for keeping \u201crestakers\u201d honest by revoking collateral if they act maliciously \u2014 will finally realize the year-old protocol\u2019s original pitch.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are happy to say now that the whole promise has been delivered,\u201d said EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

EigenLayer became one of the buzziest protocols in Ethereum history when it introduced investors to the concept of restaking, an evolution of \u201cproof-of-stake\u201d on Ethereum.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ethereum’s “proof-of-stake” system lets users “stake” ether (ETH) collateral with the chain to help run and secure it in exchange for interest. EigenLayer lets users stake ETH on Ethereum and then restake it again with other protocols for even more interest.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Despite launching its main network last year, slashing, a primary component of EigenLayer\u2019s shared security technology, was missing until Thursday. This led to criticism that EigenLayer\u2019s ambitious pitch didn\u2019t match its technical reality.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Today, EigenLayer boasts more than $7 billion in restaked assets, making it one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) apps. It also supports an ecosystem of 39 actively validated services (AVSs) that use its security model.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The new slashing system will roll out on Thursday, but AVS teams will need to opt-in, meaning it may take some time before slashing is live in any applications. Eigen Labs announced April 17 as the launch date for slashing earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Redesigning for Safety<\/h2>\n

EigenLayer users restake ether (ETH) and other tokens through third-party \u201coperators\u201d \u2014 infrastructure providers who delegate their pooled EigenLayer deposits across different AVSs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Operators that delegate stake to an AVS help run it in exchange for rewards: the more they stake, the higher the rewards.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In theory, slashing ensures these operators are running AVSs correctly. If operators \u201care proven to be malicious according to an on-chain Ethereum contract, then they may lose their stake or a portion of their stake,\u201d explained Kannan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When slashing goes live on Thursday, AVSs will have the option to set slashing conditions and begin penalizing bad actors.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOther than Ethereum and Cosmos, most proof-of-stake systems, including Solana, are running live without any slashing,\u201d said Kannan. \u201cEven though it is the core accountability mechanism, it\u2019s not like every proof of stake system already has this\u2014that\u2019s not true. That\u2019s what we\u2019re building.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As for why EigenLayer received so much blowback compared to other incomplete proof-of-stake systems: \u201cWe\u2019ve talked a lot about slashing, so we are held to that bar,\u201d said Kannan.<\/p>\n

Removing leverage<\/h2>\n

EigenLayer\u2019s slashing system was redesigned last year to address fears that the protocol introduced an unsafe form of leverage to the Ethereum ecosystem.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we completely cured that problem with this redesign,\u201d said Kannan.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The entire idea behind EigenLayer is to allow new protocols to immediately tap into a large security pool \u2014 the total pool of restaked assets.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In proof-of-stake systems, the amount of assets staked with a protocol roughly corresponds to how secure it is. In general, attacking a protocol like Ethereum requires controlling half or more of the assets staked, which can run into billions of dollars.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

EigenLayer\u2019s pooling model has led to fears that a poorly built slashing system could expose the entire protocol to new risks, where a single bad actor on one AVS could harm every operator.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The version of EigenLayer going live Thursday, which has been tested on Ethereum\u2019s developer networks since December, was designed so operators can limit their exposure to a given AVS, meaning bad actors on one won\u2019t necessarily impact another.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have unique attributability of stake to a particular AVS,\u201d explained Kannan. \u201cAs an AVS, I know I have, like, 10 million of \u2018slashable\u2019 stake that is not double counted \u2014 so there is no leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Additionally, the system has been configured so that \u201ceven if my AVS has a small amount of slashable stake, it is still protected in some sense, by the large amount of capital,\u201d said Kannan, since there are still systems in place to ensure the cost of attacking a system increases with the total value of the pool of restaked assets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost one year to the day after Ethereum protocol EigenLayer launched its \u201crestaking\u201d network to unprecedented industry fanfare, the network is finally adding a core feature that was, until now, glaringly absent: \u201cslashing.\u201d Eigen Labs hopes slashing \u2014 EigenLayer\u2019s system for keeping \u201crestakers\u201d honest by revoking collateral if they act maliciously \u2014 will finally realize […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-22550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}