One of the most heavily-discussed and anticipated token launches of 2024 took place a few hours ago. Of course, were talking about EIGEN the native cryptocurrency behind the most popular Ethereum restaking protocol, EigenLayer.

EIGEN Debuts at $7bn Fully-Diluted Market Cap

In an official announcement, the Eigen Foundation revealed the unlocking event of EIGEN.

1/ We’re thrilled to announce the unlocking of the EIGEN token, a big step for the @eigenlayer ecosystem.

This opens up new possibilities for open innovation, shared security, and participation across the network.

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The token was immediately listed and made available for trading at leading cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, OKX, Kraken, and more. Its also available at the Uniswap v3 decentralized exchange.

At the time of this writing, EIGEN trades above $4, giving it a fully diluted market cap of around $7bn and a current capitalization of around $760 million.

What Does It Mean for EigenLayer?

The unlock allows developers to start building Actively Validated Services (AVSs) using EIGEN staking. This is important because stakers play an important role in securing the AVSs and diversifying the networks use cases.

Per the announcement:

The unlock of EIGEN marks the beginning of broader engagement. It acts as a catalyst for economic expansion, governance, and protocol development, driving growth and strengthening the decentralized ecosystem.

To those unfamiliar, EigenLayer has emerged as one of the top DeFi projects in 2024. Its an Ethereum restaking protocol. Basically, the network acts as a middleware, creating a free and open market where validators and protocols can freely trade pooled securities for a certain price.

It was founded by Sreeram Kannan in early 2021 and has attracted more than $12 billion worth of total value locked, according to DeFiLlama.

Source: DeFiLlama