Total value locked of EigenLayer's restaking protocol up 11% in a week

What’s new? The total value locked (TVL) of EigenLayer, a restaking platform based on the Ethereum blockchain, grew 11% over the week to reach the $12,9 billion mark on August 15. EigenLayer is the largest restaking platform in the Ethereum ecosystem.

DeFiLlama data

What else is known? The largest share of EigenLayer's TVL (70%) is made up of wrapped Ethereum native tokens (WETH), with an estimated value of $8,8 billion. The dominance of WETH in the project may indicate that ETH-based tokens are being used to provide liquidity to the broader market as well.

Competing projects are also showing growth. For example, the Symbiotic platform launched in July reached a TVL of $1,07 billion, of which 63% comes from wrapped staked ETH tokens (WSTETH). The Karak platform reached a TVL of $826 million, 27% of which is WETH.

Overall, the combined TVL of the largest restaking protocols has grown 9% since August 8 to reach $14,5 billion.

With restaking platforms, users can re-stake already blocked ETH coins, increasing profits. Coins are blocked on multiple platforms at once, called Actively Validated Services (AVS), allowing users to earn rewards for participating in their security.

The recent growth can be attributed to the launch of the AVS Rewards program, in which the EigenLayer team will pay stakers and operators at least 4% of the total EIGEN governance token offering. That said, the TVL of $12,9 billion for EigenLayer is not a record high. The all-time high was recorded on June 6 at 20 billion.

On August 13, during the Blockchain Futurist Conference event, Mike Silagadze, CEO of Ether.fi, the developer of the Ether.fi liquid restaking protocol, noted the growing popularity of such projects.

He admitted that there is a risk that assets restaked through such platforms may be subject to slashing (validator's penalty for block processing violations) in several networks instead of one. However, the entrepreneur believes that these risks are small and are substantially outweighed by the opportunity for additional rewards.