EigenLayer announced its second airdrop

Eigen Foundation, the organization behind the EigenLayer restaking project, has announced the distribution of 86 million EIGEN tokens (~5.15% of the total supply) in the second season of the Stakedrop airdrop 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 eco:

☑️ Stakers & Operators ☑️ Eco Partners ☑️ Community

Claims go live on or before September 17, 2024.

More… pic.twitter.com/sC2t3fPy8I

• Eigen Foundation (@eigenfoundation) September 4, 2024

Tokens will be distributed among participants in three categories:

• stakers and node owners - ~70 million EIGEN, distribution is proportional to the stakeholder’s share of ETH hours;
• ecosystem partners — up to 10 million EIGEN;
• community members - ~6 million EIGEN, to receive it, you need to link wallet addresses to social networks by September 11th.

On August 15th at 22:26:59 UTC (August 16th at 01:26:59 in Moscow/Kiev) a snapshot was taken. Token distribution will start on ‘September 17th or before this date’.

Table of token distribution among stakers and node operators. Data: Eigen Foundation. When switching to the claiming page using a VPN, the website asks to disable it. Access may also be restricted from certain regions.

Data: Eigen Foundation token page. The total issuance of EIGEN is 1.67 billion. The price of one token in the premarket is $2.77, which evaluates FDV EigenLayer at ~$4.6 billion.

Pre-market token EIGEN. Data: Hyperliquid. At a price of $2.77, the airdrop value in the second season is approximately $238 million.

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

Top 10 projects by TVL. Data: Defi Llama. At the peak in June 2024, the total volume of locked value of EigenLayer was $20 billion, since then it has decreased to $11.357 billion.

In April, the project announced the launch of EIGEN and the distribution of 5% of tokens as part of the first Stakedrop season. At that time, market participants negatively perceived the information about the long vesting period and regional restrictions. The main complaint was related to the token retention period - after claiming EIGEN, it was not possible to move, and the monthly unlock was only 5%.

The project’s regional policy also raised questions. The platform team decided not to allow users from the USA, Canada, Russia, China, and several other countries to participate in the distribution, and also warned about blocking for using VPN services.

EigenLayer Update

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

The upgrade integrates a new validator balance verification and management system for Ethereum and EigenPod. All personalized contracts are automatically updated.

Thanks to the innovation, EigenPod owners can:

• request rewards in bulk, which significantly reduces gas costs;
• receive more profits thanks to restaking the rewards received;
• use improved user interface.

Recall that in May, the media learned that the co-founders of the DeFi platform Lido are secretly funding EigenLayer.

Read about the purpose of Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRT) in the cards: