Restaking protocol EigenLayer is launching a native token in May and its distribution will include an airdrop for those staking on the platform.

The independent non-profit Eigen Foundation will be the entity releasing the token, according to a statement.

The Eigen token will have a total supply of 1.67 billion tokens at launch. The foundation has allocated 45% of the tokens to its community. This is further subdivided into stakedrops (15%), community initiatives (15%) and ecosystem development (15%).

Additionally, 29.5% of the tokens have been allocated to investors, while early contributors will receive 25.5%. Investors and early contributors are subject to a total lockup period of three years for their allocations. The first year involves a complete lock, followed by a gradual release of their total holdings at a rate of 4% per month over the subsequent two years.

EigenLayer is a platform that lets users deposit and “re-stake” ether from various liquid staking tokens, aiming to allocate those funds to secure third-party networks or actively validated services. Since its launch last June, $16 billion worth of ether has been staked on it.

The project also released a whitepaper today describing the structure of the Eigen token and how it will fit within the EigenLayer ecosystem.

The EigenLayer community airdrop

The community airdrop, which EigenLayer is referring to as a stakedrop since users can stake Eigen tokens to secure EigenDA and future AVSs, will hand out 15% of the token supply to those who participate on the platform. These tokens will be distributed across multiple seasons.

In the first season, the foundation will hand out 5% of the token supply to users based on a snapshot of staking activities taken on March 15, 2024. Of this first season allocation, 90% of the tokens will be claimable on May 10 to eligible restakers — with a claim window of 120 days. The final 10% will be claimable in a second phase of the first season that will take place a month later.

The distribution calculation is linear, based on the amount of ether staked and the duration of the stake, with other factors like native restaking receiving an additional reward boost. Initially, as the claims begin, the tokens will remain non-transferable to allow ample time for decentralization and to foster community consensus regarding the token’s utility and governance. 

Nonetheless, when the Eigen token launches, users will be able to stake it to secure its data availability layer, called EigenDA. Other AVSs will likely follow suit soon, the project noted.

The other 10% of the supply that is being distributed to the community has been set aside for future seasons. The means of qualifying for this part of the airdrop has not yet been decided.

EigenLayer introduces ‘intersubjective forking’

In conjunction with the Eigen token, the project is introducing a new crypto-economic security system known as inter-subjective forking, which is meant to serve a complementary role to ether restaking.

This mechanism is designed to address intersubjective faults — malicious behaviors that are not immediately detectable on-chain, such as data withholding in oracles build on top of EigenLayer.

Intersubjective forking will be implemented separately from EigenLayer’s original plan of slashing ETH restakers for on-chain behavior that’s objectively identifiable. This, according to EigenLayer, will remove the need to unnecessarily burden Ethereum validators.

Update: Headline and Quick Take amended to "ecosystem participants" as the future part of the community airdrop may go beyond stakers. Added a sentence giving further context on this in the article.