EIGEN Token Debuts at $7 Billion Valuation

EigenLayer’s native token, EIGEN, has commenced trading on exchanges and is currently changing hands for around $4, giving the project a market capitalization of $750 million and a fully diluted valuation of nearly $7 billion.

EigenLayer is DeFi’s leading restaking protocol, with nearly $12 billion in total value locked. Users have waited for the token to unlock since EigenLayer opened its claim portal in May.

The EIGEN token unlock gives the EigenLayer community the ability to participate in EigenLayer governance and unlock the utility of EIGEN.

Sreeram Kanna, the founder of EigenLayer, said, “The unlocking of EIGEN furthers our commitments to decentralization, security and scaling of Ethereum and beyond.” He continued, “This is just the beginning of our 30-year timeline to create the universally accessible digital commons that catalyzes open innovation in decentralized technology.”

EigenLayer pioneered the concept of restaking, which functions as a shared security system where staked ETH can be used in multiple protocols, enhancing crypto-economic security.

EIGEN will bolster the security of EigenLayer’s actively validated services (AVSs), such as data availability layers, sidechains, oracles, bridges and new virtual machines.

“One of our driving mantras is to take the value we create and multiply it to participants across the blockchain ecosystem. The unlock of EIGEN is important because it is an initial step to incentivizing innovation through shared value,” said Robert Drost, Executive Director and CEO of the Eigen Foundation.

The claim window for the Season 2 stakedrop opened on September 16 and will remain open until March 16, 2025.