Slashing live on mainnet · EigenCloud · EIGEN $0.197

Restake ETH.
Secure everything.

EigenLayer is the Ethereum restaking protocol. Reuse your staked ETH or liquid staking tokens to secure Actively Validated Services — data availability layers, bridges, oracles, AI verification, and more — while earning additional yield on the same capital.

$18B+
TVL restaked
1,900+
Active operators
20+
AVS secured
4.36M
ETH restaked
+AVS yield
Deposit LST Balance: 12.4 stETH
—

Non-custodial · Slashing live on mainnet · Audited

🛡️ Redistribution slashing live — slashed funds repurposed by AVS rather than burned
$18B+
TVL
+ATH $28.6B noted
4.36M
ETH restaked
93.9% market share
1,900+
Operators
35% surge Q1 2026
20+
AVS secured
EigenDA, Preconf…
$0.197
EIGEN price
690M circulating

How restaking works

One ETH,
many trust networks.

EigenLayer lets the same staked ETH secure multiple services simultaneously — earning yield from each one without additional capital.

1
Stake ETH or deposit LSTs
Stake ETH natively via an EigenPod, or deposit liquid staking tokens (stETH, rETH, cbETH, LsETH, etc.) into EigenLayer strategy contracts. Your ETH remains in Ethereum's proof-of-stake system earning standard PoS rewards.
EIGENPOD · 15+ SUPPORTED LSTs
2
Delegate to an operator
Choose from 1,900+ permissionless operators who run AVS software. Operators use your delegated ETH as economic security for the services they support. You retain 90% of all AVS rewards; the operator keeps 10%.
1,900+ OPERATORS · 90% RESTAKER REWARDS
3
Earn layered yield
Earn standard Ethereum staking rewards (~3.8%) plus additional rewards from each AVS your operator secures. Most restakers currently earn through EIGEN token airdrops and points; as AVSs generate fees, yields increase further.
STAKING + AVS YIELD · EIGEN REWARDS
4
Slashing enforces honesty
EigenLayer's slashing mechanism (live on mainnet since April 17, 2025) ensures operators behave honestly when securing AVSs. The February 2026 redistribution upgrade allows AVSs to repurpose slashed funds — rather than burn them — unlocking new economic incentive designs.
SLASHING LIVE · REDISTRIBUTION FEB 2026
ETH restaked
4.36M ETH
EigenLayer holds 4.36 million ETH in restaked assets as of early 2026 — representing 93.9% of the entire restaking market. The protocol grew from $1.1B to over $18B TVL between 2024–2026, one of the fastest TVL growths in DeFi history.
Operators
1,900+
Over 1,900 permissionless operators run AVS software on EigenLayer. The largest operators serve 10+ AVSs simultaneously and have over 40,000 restakers delegated to them. Active operator count surged 35% in Q1 2026 following the Saturn One upgrade's 4 ETH MEGAPOOL design by Rocket Pool.
Market share
93.9%
EigenLayer commands 93.9% of the total Ethereum restaking market with $15.258B of the ecosystem's $16.257B total TVL. Competitors Symbiotic and Karak hold the remainder, but EigenLayer remains dominant by an overwhelming margin.

Actively Validated Services

What restaked ETH
secures

AVSs hire EigenLayer operators to provide economic security without bootstrapping their own validator set. 20+ live AVSs span data availability, bridges, oracles, AI, and preconfirmation.

Data Availability

EigenDA

EigenLayer's first-party data availability layer for rollups. Hyperscale throughput, sub-second latency roadmap (2026), and flexible fee models in ETH, EIGEN, or native token. Used by Mantle, Celo, Reya Network and more.

EIGENLAYER FIRST-PARTY · ROLLUP DA LAYER
Preconfirmation

Puffer UniFi Preconf

Sub-10 millisecond execution guarantees for Optimism-based rollups, backed by 3M+ ETH in restaked collateral. First preconfirmation AVS on EigenLayer — enables near-instant transaction finality with slashing enforcement.

SUB-10MS · 3M+ ETH SECURITY · PUFFER FINANCE
Verifiable AI

EigenAI & AI Agents

Deterministic AI inference with cryptoeconomic verifiability on EigenCloud. Enables LLMs and autonomous AI agents to prove outputs are correctly computed — powering agentic commerce, medical records, prediction markets and more.

EIGENCOMPUTE · VERIFIABLE AI · AGENTIC COMMERCE
ZK Proofs

ZK Coprocessors

Zero-knowledge proof generation networks secured by restaked ETH. Coprocessors enable smart contracts to query historical on-chain data and generate verifiable proofs without trusting off-chain computations.

LAGRANGE · BREVIS · HISTORICAL STATE PROOFS
Interoperability

Cross-Chain Bridges

Interchain messaging and bridge protocols that use restaked ETH as validator collateral. Eliminates the need to issue bridge-specific tokens to attract validators — instead leverages Ethereum's security directly.

HYPERLANE · OMNI NETWORK · LAYERZERO
Build Your AVS

Launch an AVS

EigenLayer's DevKit, SDKs, and multi-chain support let developers launch an AVS on any chain — inheriting Ethereum-level security from day one, without bootstrapping a validator set or issuing an inflation token.

DEVKIT · SDK · ANY-CHAIN DEPLOYMENT

EigenCloud

Verifiable
infrastructure
for everything.

EigenCloud extends EigenLayer's cryptoeconomic trust beyond the blockchain — enabling developers to build verifiable applications and agents for any domain where trust and correctness matter.

🗄️ EigenDA Data Availability Live

Hyperscale data availability layer for rollups and applications. Flexible cost model — pay in ETH, EIGEN, or native token. 2026 roadmap: hundreds of MB/s throughput, sub-second latency. Used by Mantle, Celo, and Reya's trading rollup (backed by Google's Agentic Payment Protocol).

ROLLUP DA · MANTLE · CELO · REYA · GOOGLE ATP INTEGRATION
⚙️ EigenCompute Verifiable Execution Mainnet Alpha

Off-chain execution environment with L1-level cryptoeconomic verifiability. Enables general-purpose computation — AI inference, complex simulations, data pipelines — to be provably correct and trustless without running on-chain.

GENERAL COMPUTE · AI INFERENCE · VERIFIABLE · MAINNET ALPHA
⚖️ EigenVerify Dispute Resolution Preview

Intersubjective dispute resolution for tasks that can't be adjudicated purely on-chain — AI model outputs, content moderation, prediction market resolution. Uses the EIGEN token as the work token for subjective attestation.

INTERSUBJECTIVE SLASHING · EIGEN TOKEN · SUBJECTIVE TASKS
🤖 EigenAI Verifiable AI Mainnet Alpha

Cryptoeconomically verified AI inference — deterministic LLM outputs backed by restaked ETH. Powers verifiable AI agents for agentic commerce, medical records, legal verification, and any domain requiring proven AI correctness. Hackathon closed March 22, 2026.

VERIFIABLE LLM · AGENTIC COMMERCE · HACKATHON MAR 2026
ELIP-12 tokenomics
100%
EigenCloud's ELIP-12 governance proposal channels 100% of EigenCloud infrastructure revenue into EIGEN token buybacks — creating a direct value-accrual link between platform usage and token holders.
20% fee on subsidized AVS rewards
100% EigenCloud revenue → EIGEN buybacks
Incentives Committee directs EIGEN emissions to fee-generating AVSs
$70M a16z investment in EIGEN tokens
Founded
Sreeram Kannan
EigenLayer was founded by Sreeram Kannan and launched on Ethereum mainnet in mid-2023. It grew from $1.1B to $18B+ TVL — one of the fastest protocol growth trajectories in DeFi history.
Rebranding
EigenLayer → EigenCloud
EigenLayer rebranded to EigenCloud in 2025–2026 as it expanded beyond restaking into a verifiable infrastructure platform — merging cloud-scale programmability with crypto-grade verifiability across EigenDA, EigenCompute and EigenVerify.

Operators

Run infrastructure.
Earn more.

Operators run AVS software and earn 10% of all rewards from restakers who delegate to them. One operator can serve multiple AVSs simultaneously.

Operator AVSs ETH del. APY
Operator economics
10%
Operators retain 10% of all AVS rewards from restakers who delegate to them. The remaining 90% flows to restakers. The largest operators serve 10+ AVSs with 40,000+ delegators — generating meaningful yield from aggregate rewards.
Entry requirement
Permissionless
Any operator can register on EigenLayer without approval. Operators opt into the AVSs they wish to serve and must meet each AVS's requirements (e.g., minimum restaked ETH, supported LSTs, hardware specs). Multiple AVSs per operator amplifies earnings.
Active operators
1,900+
As of early 2026, EigenLayer has 1,900+ active operators. Operator count surged sharply in 2025–2026 as EigenCloud launched new AVSs and slashing went live on mainnet, attracting professional node operators building multi-AVS businesses.

FAQ

Questions & answers

Everything about restaking, operators, AVSs, EigenCloud, and the EIGEN token.

  • EigenLayer is Ethereum's leading restaking protocol with $18B+ TVL, 1,900+ operators, and 20+ Actively Validated Services. It allows ETH stakers to reuse their staked assets to secure additional decentralized services simultaneously, earning yield from each. EigenCloud — comprising EigenDA, EigenCompute and EigenVerify — extends this cryptoeconomic trust to verifiable AI, data availability, and off-chain compute.
  • Two options: LST restaking — deposit stETH, rETH, cbETH or 12+ other liquid staking tokens into EigenLayer strategy contracts. Native restaking — deploy an EigenPod smart contract and set it as the withdrawal address for your Beacon Chain validator. After depositing, delegate to one of 1,900+ operators. You keep 90% of all AVS rewards; your chosen operator keeps 10%.
  • AVSs are decentralized services that need a trust layer — data availability layers, bridges, oracles, rollup sequencers, AI verification networks. Instead of bootstrapping their own validator set, AVSs hire EigenLayer operators using restaked ETH as collateral. AVSs pay operators for security; operators share with restakers. This gives new protocols access to Ethereum-level economic security from day one without issuing inflation tokens.
  • EigenCloud is EigenLayer's unified verifiable infrastructure platform: EigenDA (data availability for rollups), EigenCompute (verifiable off-chain execution, mainnet alpha), and EigenVerify (intersubjective dispute resolution). EigenCloud also includes EigenAI for deterministic AI inference with cryptoeconomic verification — enabling verifiable AI agents for agentic commerce, medical records, prediction markets and more. Backed by $70M a16z investment.
  • Yes — slashing went live on EigenLayer mainnet on April 17, 2025. Slashing penalises operators who fail to fulfill their obligations to AVSs — forfeiting a portion of their restaked ETH. The February 2026 redistribution upgrade allows AVSs to repurpose slashed funds rather than burn them, unlocking new incentive designs. EIGEN token is used for intersubjective slashing where faults require human observation rather than pure on-chain verification.
  • EIGEN is EigenLayer's universal intersubjective work token with 1.8B total supply (690M circulating, $0.197 April 2026). It powers governance and secures AVSs requiring intersubjective fault attribution — tasks where disputes are resolved by observer consensus rather than pure on-chain logic. ELIP-12 introduced 20% fees on subsidized AVS rewards and channels 100% of EigenCloud infrastructure revenue into EIGEN buybacks. EigenLayer received $70M from a16z invested in EIGEN tokens.

Restake ETH.
Power the future.

$18B+ TVL. 1,900+ operators. 20+ AVSs. EigenCloud. Slashing live on mainnet. The cryptoeconomic foundation of a verifiable, decentralized internet — starting with your staked ETH.

Non-custodial · Slashing enforced · Open protocol · Audited