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EIGEN’s purpose, unlock, transferability

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What is the main purpose of the EIGEN token?​

EIGEN is designed to empower the EigenLayer ecosystem, offering a complementary role to ETH restaking. It introduces a mechanism to handle "intersubjective" faults, or behaviors that are not identifiable onchain but warrant a penalty. With this mechanism, EIGEN provides a way for the token to be forked without forking the Ethereum mainnet consensus.

What new use cases does EIGEN unlock?​

EIGEN fundamentally offers a form of security needed for a wide range of AVSs, significantly enhancing the capacity of what can be developed on EigenLayer. Some potential use cases include transaction ordering, databases, storage services, oracles, artificial intelligence processors, and much more.

What are intersubjective faults?​

Intersubjective faults refer to instances of misbehavior that cannot be objectively identified onchain, yet are evident to all reasonable observers. Two individuals would agree that a penalty is deserved in such cases.

How does EIGEN handle intersubjective faults?​

EIGEN employs a process called "intersubjective forking", where a fork can be proposed in case of a perceived intersubjective fault. Users could then choose to support the version they deem valid, occurring entirely within EigenLayer on the Ethereum blockchain, without needing Ethereum’s social consensus.

Furthermore, the protocol provides a mechanism for applications and users to utilize the token without needing to keep track of forks.

How often does intersubjective forking occur?​

Intersubjective forking is designed to occur very rarely. It necessitates the commitment of a significant number of EIGEN tokens by a challenger. The commitment is rewarded or burned based on social consensus rules.

Where can I learn more about EIGEN’s unique design?​

The whitepaper explains EIGEN's unique design enabling intersubjective slashing. Or read a short summary here: blog.eigenlayer.xyz/eigen

Why isn’t EIGEN transferable?​

In launching EIGEN now, we were trying to satisfy two primary goals:

  1. The intersubjective forking mechanism that the token enables is essential to the security model of EigenDA (and other AVSs in the pipeline). Therefore, it was important that EIGEN be announced now, so AVSs could begin building with the EIGEN intersubjective forking primitive in mind; and
  2. The Eigen Foundation is steadfastly committed to responsibly rolling out the token and protocol in a way that maximizes adoption and a sustainable ecosystem for the long-term. We believe the protocol and ecosystem are best served in the long run by achieving certain product and decentralization milestones before there is a liquid EIGEN token.

Launching a non-transferrable EIGEN token was the best approach to satisfy both goals.

What is the timeline for EIGEN to become transferable?​

The product and decentralization milestones we would like to see before EIGEN is transferable are targeted to be completed by September 30th, 2024. For additional transparency, some of the milestones we would like to see are:

  • Community Discussions: Intersubjective forking relies on social consensus – social legitimacy as understood and accepted within a community. Before EIGEN is made transferrable, the community should have the opportunity to provide feedback on and determine whether to accept EIGEN’s novel design, parameters, and proposed implementation.

  • Payments and Slashing: Key payments and slashing features should be well established and understood, as core elements of a sustainable marketplace.

  • Enhanced Decentralization: Broader distribution of EIGENs, including through the 15% reserved for future stakedrop seasons, providing a further decentralized foundation for community participation in protocol governance.

What are the investor and core contributor unlock schedules?​

All tokens allocated to investors and core contributors will remain fully locked up for 1 year AFTER the date on which the token first becomes transferrable for the community.

After this date, EIGEN allocated to investors and core contributors will unlock 4% per month. This means EIGEN held by investors and core contributors will not be fully unlocked until 3 years after the date the tokens first become transferable for the community.