Use cases - Network Adoption

🔬New Middleware R&D
1

I initially thought new networks would take advantage of the economic security & existing decentralized validator set of ETH - Eigenlayer and not need to bootstrap an expensive validator set initially aside not wanting to further fragmentize the space, liquidity, etc.:

  • Independent l1s
  • Identity networks
  • Trust networks
  • Privacy networks
  • etc.

Of course, all of them could build up a unique validator set but won’t be limited by its size as long as enough EigenLayer support is given & can use it in parallel to not miss out on the other EigenL benefits.

So far, it seems to me that

  • no independent l1s are interested in Eigenlayer security.
  • Eth l2s should already inherit security from Ethereum - hence they won’t be big “clients”
  • Rollup-as-a-Service projects are among first adopters - makes sense if they don’t inherit Eth security
  • MEV related projects (DEXs, sequencer, settlements) are early adopters - valuable use cases
  • there are not many networks waiting for Eigenlayer support - maybe this will come a bit later

I understand that the first part of the go-to-market is onboarding ETH stakers and that works very well!

I also understand that ETH (l2) users are somewhat most aligned with the ETH validator set and consequently it may make sense to decentralize sequencers etc. utilizing the same validator set (-> no economic outflow in the economy, little additional attack vectors).

As I am diving deeper into the ecosystem, I keep asking myself the following questions:

  • Are there already networks in the pipeline to adopt Eigenlayer?
  • Which kind of networks are most interesting? Prob measured in Yield vs risk → MEV-related research?
  • Can this yield-focus lead to the exclusion of use cases such as identity & privacy or do you believe a subset of validators sees the future value & supports such use cases at temporary expenses?
  • Is there already research on how many services different validators can support?
  • Do you expect to see certain restaking/validator clusters supporting similar/same use cases? May this lead to an additional attack factor or into certain directions which not optimal long-term?

Of course, I am not aware of all initiatives & projects. Thank you for your input and feel free to reach out if you like help with an interesting project in the ecosystem.

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