Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent venture capital firm, has invested US$100 million in EigenLayer, a protocol that introduces restaking to the Ethereum blockchain, enhancing its security and efficiency.
The investment, announced on Thursday morning, follows a previous US$50 million Series A funding round for Eigen Labs, the developer of EigenLayer.
EigenLayer’s restaking protocol allows Ethereum and ERC-20 token holders to secure other projects on the network, earning rewards in the process.
This approach aims to improve the utility of staked Ethereum by allowing it to be restaked across various decentralized applications and services without removing it from the initial consensus mechanism, thereby diversifying revenue streams for validators.
EigenLayer’s protocol is currently in a phased rollout, with plans to support actively validated services (AVS) in the future. The first AVS, EigenDA, will provide data availability for Ethereum rollups.