EigenLayer's total value locked surpasses $20 billion for the first time

The total value locked on restaking protocol EigenLayer has reached $20.09 billion, marking it as the second-largest DeFi protocol behind Lido. Since the beginning of the year, the protocol's TVL has grown from $1.4 billion to $20 billion (or 5.21 million ether), The Block data shows.

At the beginning of March, EigenLayer’s TVL was 2.93 million ether — valued at $10 billion . The latest spike in TVL has been fueled by an uptick in inflows and a rise in the price of ether.

EigenLayer is a restaking protocol that aims to allow users to deposit ether and various liquid staking tokens to help secure third-party networks. Its mainnet  was rolled out in April.

A notable increase in deposits followed its token distribution plan . However, there was also a brief period of notable outflows linked to community backlash over the low individual airdrop allocations to users (potentially due to a linear distribution) and the token’s non-transferability.

The Eigen Foundation later expanded airdrop allocations for all users and clarified the timeline of token unlocks and their transferability, which helped alleviate concerns. This change was followed by increased inflows. Notably, May 31 witnessed a significant spike in inflows — with more than half a billion in deposits made on the platform, according to The Block's data on daily net flows.

Eigen Foundation has allocated 15% of its 1.6 billion token supply for user distribution across several stakedrop seasons, with 5% already allocated as of a March 2024 snapshot. Currently, the protocol is in its second stakedrop season.

EigenLayer adopts a shared security model . This enables third-party applications — referred to as actively validated services — to join the platform and secure themselves by leveraging a collective pool of re-staked ether.