Milestones
- Stage 1 mainnet: restaking depositsJun 2023Complete.
- Operators and AVSs on mainnetApr 2024Complete.
- EIGEN token transferable30 Sep 2024Complete.
- Slashing live on mainnet17 Apr 2025Complete.
- EigenCloud verifiable compute platformNowCurrent milestone.
Most important updates
- 30 Sep 2025
- 22 Jul 2025
- 17 Apr 2025
- 11 Apr 2024
- 14 Jun 2023
Current obstacles
- Chain-reaction lossesThe same stake secures many services, so one failing operator could trigger losses across all of them. Hard to model.
Physics limits
- Only provable faults can be punishedSlashing works for misbehaviour a contract can check, like signing two conflicting messages. Wrong answers to off-chain or subjective questions need votes or committees, not math.
- Security can't exceed the stakeIf the total profit from attacking several services at once exceeds the stake securing them, attack pays. Reusing stake raises that risk; security is capped by value at stake.
How it works
Reusing staked ETH
Stakers point their staked ETH or liquid staking tokens at EigenLayer contracts, pledging it as collateral for extra services beyond Ethereum.
Operators run the services
Stakers delegate to operators, who run the software for each service (AVS), like data storage or price feeds, and earn fees.
Breaking rules costs stake
Each service defines faults. If an operator commits one, its allocated stake can be slashed, and since 2025 even paid out to victims.
Stake allocated per service
Operators assign specific slices of stake to each service, so a slash in one service doesn't automatically drain stake backing others.
Update log
Tue 30 Sep 2025
- Minor: BlogSoftware
Tue 22 Jul 2025
- Minor: BlogSoftware
Jun 2025
- Minor: BlogFunding
Thu 17 Apr 2025
- Major: BlogSoftware
Thu 11 Apr 2024
- Major: BlogSoftware
Wed 14 Jun 2023
- Major: BlogSoftware
About Eigen Labs
Eigen Labs
EigenLayer restaking, EigenDA, EigenCloud
Seattle company behind EigenLayer, which lets Ethereum stakers 'restake' their ETH to secure other services, such as oracles, bridges and data layers. They earn extra rewards but risk losing stake. It also runs EigenDA, a data service for rollups.
- Penalties (slashing) went live in April 2025, so misbehaving operators can now actually lose restaked funds.
- EigenDA splits data into coded pieces spread over many operators, to handle more rollup traffic.
- Rebranded its developer platform as EigenCloud in 2025, with $70M from a16z.
- Founded
- 20215 yrs
- Headquarters
- United States
- Status
- Private
- Valuation
- private
- Works in
- CryptoData & restaking
- Coverage
- 2 programs · 12 updateslatest 30 Sep 2025checked 25 Sep
- People
- Sreeram Kannan (opens people.ece.uw.edu)Founder & CEO