EigenLayer
Staking · Restaking · EIGEN
EigenLayer (EigenCloud) is the pioneering restaking protocol: ETH stakers and LST holders restake to extend cryptoeconomic security to Actively Validated Services (AVSs) in exchange for additional rewards.
Restaking — reuse staked ETH to secure new services.
EIGEN price
$0.2101
+1.3% 24h
Latest data · 15 min delay
Risks identified
- Smart Contract
Restaked ETH and LSTs are held in EigenLayer's core strategy and delegation contracts. A bug in the restaking, delegation, withdrawal or slashing logic could lead to loss or wrongful burning of staked assets across many restakers at once.
- Systemic
Restaking layers new services on the same underlying ETH stake. Correlated slashing or cascading failures across multiple AVSs sharing the same operators/collateral could concentrate losses and, given EigenLayer's dominant share of restaking TVL, stress the broader Ethereum staking economy.
- Counterparty
Operator concentration risk: stakers delegate to a limited set of operators who run the off-chain AVS software. A poorly run, malicious or compromised operator can be slashed (funds burned) since April 2025, causing losses for the restakers who delegated to it.
- Governance
The EIGEN token introduces 'intersubjective forking' — social-consensus resolution of faults that cannot be proven on-chain. This gives token holders / social consensus discretionary power over what counts as misbehavior, and the Eigen Foundation controls emissions/incentives, creating governance and centralization risk.
- Collateral
Restaked collateral (ETH and liquid staking tokens) is exposed to the risk of the underlying LST depegging or the Ethereum consensus-layer slashing that already applies to staked ETH, compounded by the additional AVS-level slashing conditions layered on top.