What Do We Talk About When We Discuss EIGEN?
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What Do We Talk About When We Discuss EIGEN?
Let's tackle the core questions about EIGEN in a Q&A format.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: EigenLayer
Translation: Alex Liu, Foresight News
Since EigenLayer announced the EIGEN token, the community has accumulated many related questions. Below are answers to the most frequently asked ones: 👇
What are Intersubjectivity Attributable Faults?
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These faults can be identified through broad consensus among external observers, and their occurrence can be determined even outside the blockchain.
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Unlike objectively attributable faults, intersubjectively attributable faults may not be provable on-chain using mathematics and cryptography.
For example: Was data in a data availability layer available at a specific point in time? This can be observed off-chain via data availability sampling, but unavailability of data cannot be proven within a smart contract.
How does EIGEN staking complement ETH restaking?
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Many AVS (Actively Validated Services) ensure security through objective slashing mechanisms; however, service liveness and censorship resistance previously relied on the assumption that staking was decentralized—now they can be secured via EIGEN staking.
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Services securing safety via ETH restaking and liveness via EIGEN staking can split fees between two consensus groups, thus optimizing resource allocation.
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In core Ethereum ecosystem services, dual staking with both ETH and EIGEN enhances security. ETH restaking promotes decentralization and resistance against collusion, ensuring trust in the majority of Ethereum participants, while EIGEN staking ensures cryptoeconomic security through token forking.
EigenLayer enables AVSs to integrate two models:
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Objective staking from ETH and intersubjective consensus staking from EIGEN.
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Additionally, AVSs can leverage their native tokens, further enhancing validation through support from communities of AVS token stakers who reach intersubjective consensus.
How does EIGEN staking accelerate innovation in AVSs with objectively attributable faults?
By leveraging EIGEN tokens for intersubjective slashing and achieving cryptoeconomic security, EIGEN staking allows AVSs to operate effectively even when writing on-chain fraud proofs is infeasible or unnecessarily complex. This approach enhances security while reducing technical complexity.
How does EIGEN staking provide security across the full lifecycle of new objective AVSs?
EIGEN staking provides critical security during early stages, enabling faster deployment of MVPs. As systems mature and faults become easier to identify objectively, AVSs can transition to using ETH restaking.
Which AVSs can benefit from the security provided by staking EIGEN tokens?
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Censorship Resistance: Ensures propagated transactions are included in the ledger; censorship detected off-chain leads to slashing.
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Ledger Growth: Maintains continuous addition of transactions. Halted execution is considered an off-chain fault leading to slashing.
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Data Availability: Guarantees data accessibility across the network; off-chain fraud detection enables slashing of non-compliant providers.
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Oracles: Provides reliable real-world data; discrepancies detected off-chain result in penalties for malicious nodes.
Use Cases
These foundational modules can be combined into more complex constructs, then used across various AVSs. For example:
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New Chains: Build new blockchain networks with customizable security and functionality.
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Prediction Markets: Develop decentralized prediction markets using intersubjective staking to achieve reliable oracles.
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AI Systems: Ensure validity and security of AI training, benchmarking, and inference via intersubjective staking.
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Intents and MEV: Manage transaction ordering and prevent malicious MEV activities through innovative order matching engines.
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Note: While EIGEN is currently stakable, the full functionality described above will be enabled once the token becomes transferable.
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