Author: Haotian

Leaving aside the “neutrality” influence of core members of the Ethereum Foundation as advisors to @eigenlayer, when it comes to its technical value, Eigenlayer is really important to the future development of Ethereum from a long-term perspective. To prevent everyone from falling into the emotional misjudgment of “hating the house”, let me share some personal understandings for reference:

1) Many people know the value of Lido to the Ethereum ecosystem. It has managed a number of validators, lowered the high threshold of 32 ETH required for users to participate in a node, and also avoided complex node system maintenance. At the same time, stETH can also re-release liquidity to avoid asset locking.

Overall, LiDO has increased the overall staking rate of the Ethereum PoS network and enhanced network security. Simply understood, Lido strengthens Ethereum's internal security and defense system;

In contrast, Eigenlayer aims to enhance Ethereum's “external” influence and secure consensus service capabilities. On the one hand, it reuses the security already pledged by the LSD platform, allowing some of its enhanced Validators to simultaneously provide services to multiple application networks, and radiate security influence beyond Ethereum, especially to the Rollup ecosystem.

Essentially, Eigenlayer has built a “programmable security market”, so that Ethereum's core security resources can be distributed as needed, thereby enhancing the market position of the Ethereum secure settlement layer under the unified ideas of “modularity” and “chain abstraction.”

To some extent, Eigenlayer has strengthened Ethereum's external investment and influence system. When Zheng He went to the West in the Ming dynasty, his perception wasn't obvious; when he arrived in the Qing dynasty, his feelings were very profound.

2) When the pledged asset is then pledged, two layers of security attributes are superimposed on the same asset. On the surface, Eigenlayer superimposes a layer of “leverage” on Ethereum. However, from DeFi, NFTs, and the metaverse to layer 2 of the new cycle, the underlying core logic for the rise of Ethereum tokens is one: innovative events drive Fomo sentiment, trigger network congestion, and then spur ETH deflation to spur an increase.

The governance mining farming and gold shovel yield logic brought about by DeFi, NFTs, etc., are more likely to be criticized for the “matrimony” game, but this has not affected the impactful bull market that has driven Ethereum into a far-reaching bull market.

At the beginning of Layer2's rollup paradigm, then to RaaS, it originally followed the logic of Ethereum deflation, but I analyzed it in my previous article. After the Cancun upgrade, the abundance of blob space and the low cost of Layer 2 Gas fees, these “technological” advancements unexpectedly broke this “market” logic.

Therefore, Ethereum's “deflation” logic doesn't work; it can only continue to follow the logic of stacking “leverage.”

Because in the long run, Ethereum's consensus position and influence will not be affected. Off-chain “security consensus” requirements, “modular” expansion, and “chain abstraction” integration will not isolate Ethereum's market position. How to enhance Eigenlayer's ability to commercialize secure consensus is important to Ethereum.

Only in this way can more ETH and various types of LST assets lock in liquidity, consolidate the underlying security consensus of the POS chain, and give Ethereum continuous growth momentum. Although this kind of correlation logic is far-fetched, there are no better alternatives.

3) Recently, Eigenlayer founder @sreeramkannan had a Twitter argument with several Layer2 project researchers, including Optimism. The topic of discussion is not unfamiliar. Technical consensus vs. social consensus, who is more important? We often say that the development strategy boundaries of Ethereum layer 2 are getting bigger and bigger, and the strategy is getting out of control. Why?

For example, layer2 @Optimism incorporates a social consensus priority guideline: using the OP Stack technology open source framework to win over resources, using OP token cauldron rice to distribute unified strategic alliances, and then using a unified security committee to share centralized sequencers to solve the interoperability problem of the Superchain Alliance.

Doing so also works at this stage, but it deviates from the supreme principle of “technology first.” Perhaps unifying social consensus (aligning common interests) can indeed reduce the possibility of individual misconduct, but this is not a reason for rejecting decentralized sequencers and delaying implementation of technical frameworks such as fraud proofs.

Although Eigenlayer is a set of middleware network consensus, the concept it advocates is indeed “technology first”. It allows verification nodes to release a wider range of service capabilities and business scope through Tokenomics design, but its underlying logic is still POS pledge mining. Nodes must be pledged to participate in consensus decisions, and once misconduct occurs, assets will be forfeited by Slash. This is also consistent with Ethereum's core, which strengthens the underlying security capabilities.

What's more, EigenLayer's AVS already has network consensus layers such as decentralized Oracle, decentralized sequencer, decentralized DA, and decentralized preconfs, and there will be obvious complementarity between it and layer 2, which is dominated by loose social consensus.

Therefore, Eigenlayer is critical for Ethereum's Rollup-Centric strategy to maintain the consensus principle of “technology first.”

That's it.

As a composable “commercialized security consensus” that can be distributed as needed, Eigenlayer gives the Ethereum ecosystem great ecological flexibility. This is a powerful weapon for Ethereum to face external competition in various high-performance chains.

Anyway, enjoy watching. Although the story Eigenlayer is telling at this stage is very illusory, there is no story about this level of technological and commercial expansion. How can it support Ethereum's position as the center of the blockchain public chain in the future?

Don't be fud, just give yourself some patience and time.