According to trading data from perpetual decentralized exchanges, Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer is just hours away from unlocking its native token EIGEN, and the derivatives market is showing signs of a promising launch.
EigenLayer’s native token has been non-transferable since its launch in May, but perpetual futures contracts linked to EIGEN, or “perps,” currently show a spot price of around $4 per token, according to data from exchanges Aevo and Hyperliquid.
EIGEN perps increased steadily in September.
“The most likely scenario is that airdrop farmers will sell off, which could negatively impact the price in the short term, but I believe there will still be many people who want to buy cheap EIGEN during the next cycle,” said Aylo, the anonymous founder of Alpha Please.
The token is expected to unlock at 5:00 UTC on October 1 (12:00 GMT) and will begin trading on centralized exchanges (CEX) such as Binance and Bitfinex shortly thereafter.
With a total supply of 1.67 billion tokens, EIGEN's fully diluted value (FDV) is on track to exceed $6.7 billion, while approximately 200 million EIGEN tokens are in circulation.
EIGEN perks on Aevo and Hyperliquid have been on a steady rise since early September, nearly doubling from a low of around $2 per token. 24-hour trading volume on Aevo and Hyperliquid is around $1 million but does not appear to fully reflect market dynamics.
Perps market shows that the price of EIGEN in unofficial OTC trades increased from around $2 in August to around $3.50 on September 24, according to information from a source familiar with the matter. Initial OTC trades following the EigenLayer airdrop in May valued EIGEN at as much as $10 per token.
Token holders will benefit as more protocols begin to reward EigenLayer restators who deposit tokens, including EIGEN, as collateral to secure other networks or “actively validated services” (AVS), as EigenLayer describes it.
According to DefiLlama, as of September 30, EigenLayer held nearly $12 billion in total value locked (TVL).
In August, EigenDA, EigenLayer's affiliate AVS, started rewarding restakers in ETH and EIGEN. Other AVS, including Arpa Network, are also adopting this method.
“The last ecosystem map I saw had over 60 AVSs building on EigenLayer. I think ‘AVS for decentralized services’ will be worth more than the current pre-market level.”
Meanwhile, stakers on Polymarket in support of the EIGEN airdrop were dealt a blow when the Eigenlayer Foundation announced the token unlock time on September 30 at 21:00 Pacific Time (PST), one minute after the predicted time of 20:59. Prior to the announcement, the “Yes” side had reached 97% on the unlock information, but the lack of a specific time zone led to confusion.
After the exact timing was announced, the “Yes” side’s odds plummeted to 3%. Polymarket has updated its rules for settling bets related to the airdrop, and it is now likely that the “No” side will win.
