Original author: Biscuit, RootData
In 2024, with the explosion of Layer 2 blockchain, the competition for data availability will become fierce. As the leading re-pledge protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem, EigenLayer announced on January 10 that it would add three new LST assets and reopen the existing upper limit of 200,000 ETH for each LST asset on January 29 for re-pledge.
According to RootData statistics, EigenLayer completed a $14.5 million seed round of financing in August 2022. Polychain and Ethereal Ventures led the investment, and Figment Capital, dao 5, Robot Ventures and others participated. On March 28, 2023, EigenLayer completed a US$50 million Series A financing at a valuation of US$500 million, led by Blockchain Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Hack VC, Electric Capital and others.
Last year, EigenLayer raised the re-staking limit of LST three times after the first phase of the mainnet was launched. Each time it was raised, it would quickly reach the hard cap within a few hours. Inspired by pledge points, a number of re-pledge derivatives protocols based on EigenLayer points were spawned. This article will take stock of 12 such as Ether.Fi, Renzo, and Kelp DAO. Readers can also access the RootData collection to conduct further research on the project.
Ether.Fi
Ether.Fi is a liquidity staking protocol where stakers control their keys while delegating their staking to node operators and receiving rewards. ether.fi launched its mainnet on November 6 last year, and early eETH stakers will receive loyalty points. Ether.Fi plans to implement DAO governance in March this year.
On February 28, 2023, Ether.Fi completed a US$5.3 million seed round of financing, led by North Island Ventures and Chapter One, with participation from Node Capital, Arrington Capital and others.
Renzo
Renzo is a re-pledge protocol based on EigenLayer. Renzo abstracts the complex process of re-staking for end users, and stakers do not have to worry about the active selection and management of operators and reward strategies.
On January 15, 2024, Renzo Protocol completed a US$3.2 million seed round of financing at a valuation of US$25 million. Maven 11 led the investment, with participation from Figment Capital, SevenX Ventures, IOSG Ventures, Bodhi Ventures, OKX Ventures, Robot Ventures, etc.
Renzo launched the ezPoints point program on January 4, aiming to reward users who contribute to the protocol. The first way to earn points is to mint ezETH, and other ways to earn points will be announced as the staking ecosystem matures.
Mangata
Mangata is an Omnichain ZK-rollup for cross-chain trading and L1-level native liquidity. It supports Gas-free exchange of native assets and MEV minimization of cross-chain transactions. Transactions on the network require purchasing and locking native tokens.
According to RootData platform data, Mangata raised US$5.6 million through 2 rounds of financing, with participation from Polychain, IOSG Ventures, Polychain and others.
Mangata has partnered with Eigenlayer operators to secure Mangata AVS, and its testnet will bootstrap the infrastructure on the Ethereum Goerli testnet to secure Mangata using natively re-mortgaged ETH. Mangata plans to launch the mainnet on Ethereum through EigenLayer in 2024.
Kelp DAO
Kelp DAO is a triple income re-pledge protocol based on EigenLayer. rsETH is a Liquid Re-staking Token (LRT) issued by Kelp DAO, designed to provide liquidity for illiquid assets deposited into the re-staking platform.
AltLayer
AltLayer is a highly scalable application-specific execution layer system that derives security from the underlying L1/L2. It is designed as a modular and pluggable framework for the multi-chain and multi-VM world. In December last year, EigenLayer announced a cooperation with the Ethereum expansion project AltLayer to launch the Active Verification Service (AVS) Restaked Rollups.
On July 1, 2022, AltLayer completed a US$7.2 million seed round of financing. Polychain, Jump Crypto and Breyer Capital co-led the investment, 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 of the MVB Season 6.
PolyHedra
PolyHedra is the infrastructure for Web3 interoperability, providing a 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, dao 5, ABCDE Capital, Sparkle Ventures, HashKey Capital, Foresight Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, etc.
Hyperlane
Hyperlane is a platform for developers to build a cross-chain universe, providing on-chain APIs for sending information between blockchains. Developers can use Hyperlane as an API to easily and securely communicate between blockchains, or developers can leverage the Hyperlane SDK and tools to quickly build cross-chain applications.
On September 22, 2022, Hyperlane completed a US$18.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Galaxy Digital, CoinFund, Figment, Blockdaemon, Kraken Ventures, NFX, and Circle Ventures.
Hyperlane has been integrated into the Celestia main network, launching a cross-chain bridge from Celestia to Celestia Rollup, supporting cross-chain transmission of TIA between Rollups, currently including cross-chain operations between Neutron and Manta Network.
Omni Network
Omni is Ethereum’s interoperability layer and serves as the core infrastructure supporting all modular applications on Ethereum. When building applications, developers are no longer forced to build within the scope of a single rollup or execution environment.
On February 8, 2022, Omni Network completed US$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, and Joseph Naggar cast.
Espresso Systems
Espresso Systems is an EVM-compatible blockchain that provides scaling and privacy systems for Web 3 applications. By combining the PoS consensus protocol with the zk Rollup mechanism, Espresso Systems packages multiple transactions in a more resource-saving manner.
On March 7, 2022, Espresso Systems completed a US$32 million seed round of 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 the EigenLayer re-collateralization primitive. Developed by EigenLabs, EigenDA will be the first Active Verification Service (AVS) launched on EigenLayer.
Witness Chain
Witness Chain is building transparent middleware for blockchain. By leveraging Eigenlayer, WitnessChain is able to create a decentralized observer network for provable monitoring of AVS that will provide the first line of defense against optimistic rollups.
