Inventory of projects in the Eigenlayer restaking track that have the opportunity to receive airdrops

Author: Biscuit, RootData

In 2024, with the explosion of Layer2 blockchains, the competition for data availability has entered a fever pitch. As the leading restaking protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, EigenLayer announced on January 10 that it will add three new LST assets and reopen the existing cap of 200,000 ETH for restaking each LST asset on January 29.

According to statistics from RootData, EigenLayer completed a $14.5 million seed round financing in August 2022, led by Polychain and Ethereal Ventures, with participation from Figment Capital, dao5, Robot Ventures, and others. On March 28, 2023, EigenLayer completed a $50 million Series A financing at a valuation of $500 million, led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Hack VC, Electric Capital, and others.

Last year, after the mainnet's first phase went live, EigenLayer raised the restaking limits for LST three times, quickly reaching the hard cap within hours after each increase. Driven by the incentives of staking points, a number of restaking derivative protocols based on EigenLayer points emerged. This article will review 12 EigenLayer-related projects, including Ether.Fi, Renzo, and Kelp DAO. Readers can also visit RootData's collection for further research on the projects.

Ether.Fi

Ether.Fi is a liquid staking protocol that allows stakers to control their keys while delegating staking to node operators and earning rewards. Ether.fi launched its mainnet on November 6 last year, and early stakers of eETH will receive loyalty points. Ether.Fi plans to implement DAO governance in March this year.

On February 28, 2023, Ether.Fi completed a $5.3 million seed round financing, led by North Island Ventures and Chapter One, with participation from Node Capital, Arrington Capital, and others.

Renzo

Renzo is a restaking protocol based on EigenLayer. Renzo abstracts the complex process of restaking for end users, allowing stakers not to worry about the proactive selection and management of operators and reward strategies.

On January 15, 2024, Renzo Protocol completed a $3.2 million seed round financing at a valuation of $25 million, led by Maven11, with participation from Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Bodhi Ventures, OKX Ventures, Robot Ventures, and others.

Renzo launched the ezPoints rewards program on January 4, aimed at rewarding users who contribute to the protocol. The first way to earn points is by minting ezETH, with other ways to earn points to be announced as the staking ecosystem matures.

Mangata

Mangata is an Omnichain ZK-rollup for cross-chain trading and L1 native liquidity. It supports gasless swaps of native assets and minimizes MEV for cross-chain transactions. Trading on the network requires purchasing and locking native tokens.

According to data from the RootData platform, Mangata raised $5.6 million through two rounds of financing, with participation from Polychain, IOSG Ventures, and others.

Mangata collaborates with Eigenlayer operators to ensure the security of Mangata AVS, and its testnet will guide the infrastructure on the Ethereum Goerli testnet to use locally restaked ETH to secure Mangata. Mangata plans to launch its mainnet on Ethereum through EigenLayer in 2024.

Kelp DAO

Kelp DAO is a triple-yield restaking protocol based on EigenLayer. rsETH is a liquidity restaking token (LRT) issued by Kelp DAO, designed to provide liquidity for non-liquid assets deposited into the restaking platform.

AltLayer

AltLayer is a highly scalable application-specific execution layer system that derives security from underlying L1/L2. It is designed as a modular and pluggable framework for a multi-chain and multi-VM world. In December last year, EigenLayer announced a partnership with the Ethereum scaling project AltLayer to launch the proactive validation service (AVS) "Restaked Rollups."

On July 1, 2022, AltLayer completed a $7.2 million seed round financing, co-led by Polychain, Jump Crypto, and Breyer Capital, with participation from Balaji Srinivasan, Gavin Wood, Ryan Selkis, and others. On August 4, 2023, AltLayer received strategic investment from Binance Labs and was selected as one of the best projects in Season 6 MVB.

PolyHedra

PolyHedra is the infrastructure for Web3 interoperability, providing trustless and efficient infrastructure for cross-chain bridges and data interoperability between various Web2 and Web3 systems.

Currently, PolyHedra has completed three rounds of financing, with investors including Binance Labs, OKX Ventures, Polychain, Animoca Brands, dao5, ABCDE Capital, Sparkle Ventures, HashKey Capital, Foresight Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, and others.

Hyperlane

Hyperlane is a platform for developers to build a cross-chain universe, providing an on-chain API for sending messages between blockchains. Developers can use Hyperlane as an API for easy and secure communication between blockchains, or they can leverage the Hyperlane SDK and tools to quickly build cross-chain applications.

On September 22, 2022, Hyperlane completed a $18.5 million seed round financing, with participation from Galaxy Digital, CoinFund, Figment, Blockdaemon, Kraken Ventures, NFX, Circle Ventures, and others.

Hyperlane has been integrated into the Celestia mainnet, launching a cross-chain bridge from Celestia to Celestia Rollup, supporting TIA cross-chain transfers between Rollups, currently including cross-chain operations between Neutron and Manta Network.

Omni Network

Omni is the interoperability layer for Ethereum, providing core infrastructure to support all modular applications on Ethereum. When building applications, developers will no longer be forced to build within the confines of a single Rollup or execution environment.

On February 8, 2022, Omni Network completed $18 million in financing, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Two Sigma Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Spartan Group, DeFiance Capital, Hashed, Jump Capital, Do Kwon, Stani Kulechov, Sandeep Nailwal, Joseph Naggar, and others.

Espresso Systems

Espresso Systems is an EVM-compatible blockchain that provides scaling and privacy systems for Web 3 applications. By combining PoS consensus protocols with zk Rollup mechanisms, Espresso Systems packages multiple transactions in a more resource-efficient manner.

On March 7, 2022, Espresso Systems completed a $32 million seed round financing, co-led by Greylock and Electric Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Blockchain Capital, Slow Ventures, Alameda Research, and others.

EigenDA

EigenDA is a secure, high-throughput, and decentralized data availability (DA) service built on Ethereum using EigenLayer restaking primitives. EigenDA is developed by EigenLabs and will become the first proactive validation service (AVS) launched on EigenLayer.

Witness Chain

Witness Chain is building transparent middleware for blockchains. By leveraging Eigenlayer, WitnessChain can create a decentralized observer network for provable monitoring of AVS, providing the first line of defense for optimistic rollups.