The big one is finally coming! A comprehensive overview of EigenLayer airdrop key information and valuation predictions
EigenLayer officially announced its token issuance and airdrop plan — the airdrop claim for the token EIGEN is set to officially start on May 10.Author: Azuma, PANews
On April 30th, at midnight Beijing time, EigenLayer, the core project of the re-staking track, officially announced its token issuance and airdrop plan ------ the airdrop claim for the token EIGEN is set to officially start on May 10th.
In fact, even before the official announcement from Eigen Layer, community members had already discovered some clues about the airdrop. Several community users found that Eigen Layer had opened a foundation account on the X platform called Eigen Foundation, and multiple official accounts including Eigen Labs and Eigen Layer, as well as founder Sreeram Kannan, had followed this account. The homepage description of this account included the domain "eigenfoundation.org." Additionally, some community users discovered that Sub Domain Finder information showed that multiple subdomains, including "claims.eigenfoundation.org," had been created under the main domain "eigenfoundation.org," indicating a clear direction towards the airdrop.
Perhaps due to the rapid spread of this information on social media last night, EigenLayer decided to "not hide it" and directly released an official announcement. Next, Odaily Planet Daily will compile all key information regarding the EIGEN airdrop from the existing official materials, including the white paper, documents, and announcements.
EIGEN Token Utility
According to the white paper released by Eigenlayer on GitHub, unlike common governance tokens, EIGEN is positioned as a general, verifiable "work token." The so-called "work token" refers to utility tokens that can be staked by participants to perform certain tasks (such as blockchain validation). If participants violate specific work commitments, their staked "work tokens" may face slashing penalties.
In the context of EIGEN, EIGEN staking aims to functionally complement ETH re-staking, introducing a brand new mechanism to address subjective "errors," such as behaviors that cannot be identified on-chain but still require punishment. In other words, Eigenlayer will support a complementary staking model between ETH and EIGEN, where ETH staking primarily addresses objective consensus issues (which can be roughly understood as whether nodes are acting maliciously), and EIGEN staking primarily addresses subjective economic efficiency issues (which can be roughly understood as whether nodes are acting reasonably).
Through EIGEN staking, EigenLayer can ensure comprehensive validation capabilities without forking the Ethereum mainnet consensus, and is expected to unlock a series of proactive validation services (AVS) with strong economic security that were previously impossible, such as activating new innovations in oracles, DA, databases, AI, game virtual machines, intent and order matching, MEV engines, prediction markets, and more.
Token Supply and Distribution Mechanism
According to disclosures from The Block, the total supply of EIGEN tokens at genesis will be 1.67 billion, with the specific distribution as follows.
45% of EIGEN tokens will be allocated to the community, which will be further divided into airdrop (15%, detailed below), community programs (15%), and ecosystem development (15%).
29.5% of EIGEN tokens will be allocated to investors, and 25% of EIGEN tokens will be allocated to early contributors. The shares for investors and early contributors will be unlocked over three years, with the first year being fully locked, followed by a gradual release of 4% per month over the next two years.
Airdrop Mechanism Explained
For ordinary users, the most concerning issue right now is the airdrop situation.
Eigenlayer has now opened a query page for the first phase of the first season airdrop quota, where users can directly check their eligible airdrop shares.
As mentioned above, Eigenlayer will distribute 15% of EIGEN tokens in the form of an airdrop, and the first season airdrop plan announced this time will allocate 5% of EIGEN tokens. The snapshot date for the first season airdrop is March 15, 2024, and the airdrop claim period will be from May 10 to September 7.
The first season airdrop (Season 1) will be conducted in two phases, with the first phase (Phase 1) allocating 90%, and the airdrop will be distributed to users who re-staked directly through EigenLayer or through liquidity re-staking protocols; the second phase (Phase 2) will allocate 10%, distributed to users who interacted with EigenLayer in more complex ways (such as Pendle, Equilibrium), with the second phase airdrop expected to start a month later.
As for the subsequent second season and potential more seasonal airdrop plans, Eigenlayer only mentioned that the second season is in progress, and users should pay attention to official channels for specific information to be announced in the future.
EIGEN Circulation Issues
It is worth emphasizing that EigenLayer has clearly stated in the white paper: to achieve sufficient decentralization, EIGEN tokens will be in a non-transferable state during the initial claim period.
According to official documents, this non-transferable state is expected to last for several months (in the coming months), until the completion of "sufficient community discussion on EIGEN's complementary staking mechanism," "activation of AVS payment and slashing mechanisms," and "broad distribution of tokens," after which the transfer function will be activated.
How is EIGEN Valued?
As a core and foundational project in the re-staking track, EIGEN's valuation clearly has vast imaginative space ------ especially given that upper-layer LRT protocols like ether.fi have multi-billion dollar FDVs.
Currently, Aevo has listed EIGEN for pre-market trading, reporting at $10.3 at the time of publication, which may serve as a potential reference.
However, since the trading market on Aevo has only been open for a few hours and the trading volume in pre-market trading is relatively low, this value cannot accurately represent EIGEN's true performance after it goes live and unlocks transfer functionality; all answers may only be revealed a few months later.
