How Eigen Layer works — validators, services, and yields
Eigen Layer sits between existing staked ETH and a set of nascent services that need economic backing. Validators who have already staked ETH to secure the Ethereum beacon chain may opt to “restake” — effectively pledging a portion (or all) of their stake to additional services that register on Eigen. Each service supplies verification rules and its own slashing semantics; if a validator misbehaves relative to a service’s rules, the protocol enforces the specified penalty.
For validators, restaking can mean new revenue streams: services pay fees or rewards for providing security. For projects, Eigen enables rapid bootstrap of economic guarantees because the heavy lifting of attracting and operating a dedicated staking set is reduced. However, the model shifts complexity to governance, risk design, and operational monitoring: validators must understand every service they secure and the possible slashing scenarios.
Typical service types
Use cases that benefit from Eigen Layer include decentralized oracles requiring strong attestation guarantees, data availability or archival networks that need slashing disincentives, off-chain compute attesters, and sequencer services for rollups that require slashing deterrents for misordering or censorship. Each service registers its interface and slashing checks so validators can make informed choices.
Validator responsibilities
Participating validators must maintain resilient infrastructure, monitoring, and signing behavior that matches each service’s expectations. Because one validator's stake might back multiple services, the cumulative slashing exposure must be considered: multiple minor infra faults across services could aggregate into a serious economic loss on the underlying staked ETH.
Economic design & incentives
Designers of Eigen services set reward schedules and slashing rules to balance security and adoption. Conservative early-stage parameters, clear dispute handling, and transparent audits are key to building trust. On the supply side, validators weigh reward uplift against increased operational and reputational risk before restaking.
Interpreting the risks
Restaking increases capital efficiency but expands the attack and failure surface. Risks include poorly specified slashing logic, buggy service code, governance manipulation, and correlated failures. Risk mitigation strategies include staged rollouts, formal verification, independent audits, conservative slashing parameters, and insurance or risk pooling mechanisms.
Ultimately, Eigen Layer is a powerful primitive for composable security. When used with caution, it enables diverse experiments—fast launching of security-critical services, new marketplace primitives, and opportunities for validators to earn additional yield while continuing to secure Ethereum.