EigenLayer Announces Second Airdrop

The Eigen Foundation, the organization behind the restaking project EigenLayer, has announced the distribution of 86 million EIGEN tokens (~5.15% of the total supply) as part of the second season of the Stakedrop campaign.

1/ We’re excited to announce the EIGEN Season 2 Stakedrop in preparation for unlock!

Season 2 will recognize key contributors and participants across the ecosystem:

☑️ Stakers & Operators
☑️ Ecosystem Partners
☑️ Community

Claims go live on or before September 17, 2024.

More… pic.twitter.com/sC2t3fPy8I

— Eigen Foundation (@eigenfoundation) September 4, 2024

The tokens will be distributed among participants in three categories:

• stakers and node operators — ~70 million EIGEN, distributed proportionally to the ETH-hours staked;
• ecosystem partners — up to 10 million EIGEN;
• community participants — ~6 million EIGEN, requiring wallet addresses to be linked to social media by September 11.

A snapshot was taken on August 15 at 22:26:59 UTC (August 16 at 01:26:59 Moscow/Kyiv time). Token distribution will begin “on or before September 17.”

When accessing the claim page via VPN, the site requests its deactivation. Access may also be restricted from certain regions.

The total supply of EIGEN is 1.67 billion. The pre-market price of one token is $2.77, valuing EigenLayer’s FDV at ~$4.6 billion.

At a price of $2.77, the value of the second season’s airdrop is ~$238 million.

EigenLayer ranks second among the largest DeFi projects by TVL, trailing the liquid staking protocol Lido.

At its peak in June 2024, EigenLayer’s total value locked was $20 billion, which has since decreased to $11.357 billion.

In April, the project announced the launch of EIGEN and the distribution of 5% of tokens in the first season of Stakedrop. At that time, market participants reacted negatively to the lengthy vesting and regional restrictions. The main grievance was the token holding period — after claiming, EIGEN could not be moved, and the monthly unlock was only 5%.

The project’s regional policy also raised concerns. The platform’s team decided to exclude users from the US, Canada, Russia, China, and several other countries from the distribution, and warned of blocks for using VPN services.

EigenLayer Update

Eigen Labs announced an update to EigenPod, making the restaking protocol “simpler and more profitable.”

The upgrade integrates a new system for verifying and managing the balance of Ethereum validators and EigenPod. All personalized contracts have been automatically updated.

Thanks to the innovation, EigenPod owners can:

• request rewards in bulk, significantly reducing gas costs;
• earn more by restaking received rewards;
• use an improved user interface.

In May, media reported that the co-founders of the DeFi platform Lido were secretly funding EigenLayer.

For more on the purpose of liquid restaking tokens (LRT), see the cards: