Can delegators choose which AVS they opt in to validate for?

General
1

Hello, I’m reading the EigenLayer docs and I came across this defintion of delegation: " Delegation is the process where stakers delegate their restaked ETH or LSTs to Operators or run validation services themselves, effectively becoming an Operator. This process involves a double opt-in between both parties, ensuring mutual agreement. Restakers retain agency over their stake and choose which AVSs they opt-in to validate for."

The last sentence is confusing me because as far as I am aware, Operators decide which AVS’s they validate for, delegators decide which operators they want to delegate to, and delegators can see which AVS’s Operators validate.

I guess delegators can loosely decide which AVS’s they want to validate by deciding which operator to delegate to. But after picking an operator, there is no granular choice for a delegator to decide which AVS’s to validate, right?

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2

Yes, you are correct. A staker that delegates to third-party Operators has agency to the extent that they can choose Operators who are validating services that are aligned with the staker’s risk-return preferences. This also includes the Operator having adequate safeguards, e.g. an allocation delay, that the staker is comfortable with. Also, note: since a single address can only delegate to one Operator, a staker has the ability to allocate their stake across multiple separate addresses, and thus multiple Operators.

If the staker is also the Operator (a staker delegates to themselves), then obviously the staker can directly choose which AVSs to validate.

We are designing things that would allow for more granular control of stake allocations, so stay tuned!

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