The re-staking protocol Symbiotic was officially launched on Tuesday (11th). The protocol also announced the completion of a 5.8 million seed round of financing co-led by venture capital firms Paradigm and cyber.Fund.
Symbiotic enables user deposits to be secured on third-party networks through a shared security model that competes with EigenLayer, Ethereum’s first re-pledge protocol.
Similar to EigenLayer, Symbiotic seeks to solve common problems in blockchain development and cybersecurity by reallocating existing staked capital and infrastructure. Depositors of Symbiotic will be rewarded for their contribution to third-party cybersecurity. The protocol has a flexible and configurable modular design that supports any combination of tokens as re-hypothecation collateral and allows for customizable penalties and reward mechanisms.
Symbiotic’s launch will coincide with the start of its bootstrapping phase and the integration phase of re-pledged collateral.
Source: Symbiotic
Symbiotic differs from EigenLayer in that the protocol allows for the use of a variety of ERC-20 tokens, not just Ethereum (ETH) and specific derivatives, which has the potential to increase inflows to the protocol.
Symbiotic will initially focus on staking Ethereum (stETH) and will adapt to various protocols, providing control over asset support for third-party protocols and node operator selection. Symbiotic states:
“Symbiotic’s modular design is highly flexible and supports any combination of tokens as re-staking collateral. The penalty and reward logic is fully configurable.”
Several projects at various stages of decentralization are exploring the use of the Symbiotic restaking primitive. The project notes that noteworthy integrations include Ethena, Chainbound’s Bolt, Hyperlane, Marlin’s Kalypso, Fairblock, Ojo, Rollkit, and more.
EigenLayer, the first restaking protocol on Ethereum, has seen significant inflows since its launch last year. Since the beginning of 2024, the protocol’s total locked value has grown from $1.4 billion to nearly $20 billion, along with multiple integrations [also known as Active Validation Services (AVS)].
Related reports: "Informed sources: Lido founders and Paradigm are secretly investing in re-pledge protocol Symbiotic to compete with EigenLayer"
This article Symbiotic, the re-pledge protocol, officially launches and announces investments from Paradigm and cyber.Fund. It appeared first on Zombit.
