Author: Haotian, Source: Author’s Twitter @tmel0211
Sure enough, the rumor that @eigenlayer will be open for trading on September 30th is true. Last night, the Eigen Foundation announced the final time for removing the $EIGEN restricted trading: 9.30.2024.
What do you think? Next, I will talk about my opinion based on its Tokenomics design philosophy and the 7-day waiting period for staking and withdrawal.
1) After Eigenlayer's second wave of airdrops, restaking platforms including Eigenpie, Puffer, Stakestone, Swell, etc. have launched airdrop activities one after another. The restaking track has indeed had a lively effect of "one flower blooms, and a hundred flowers bloom". Presumably, after the opening of the trading function, the performance of EIGEN's secondary market will have a significant impact on the restaking track. But why would the foundation open the tradable function in this "Schrödinger's bull-bear awkward period"?
On the one hand, it may represent the Eigenlayer Foundation's optimism about the subsequent market after the interest rate cut. On the other hand, the entire Restaking ecosystem is waiting for the leadership of the "big brother". The gradual implementation of the AVS infrastructure and other restaking platforms have also accumulated market expectations for a long time. It is time to step forward. In my opinion, opening up now is the best choice regardless of the macro market sentiment and the fundamentals of the ecological market.
2) There is a 7-day waiting period for canceling the pledge, which means that if you want to transfer on the trading day, you have to act today. The Eigenlayer Foundation chose to announce the news a week ago to fully take into account the concerns of the pledgers. The official said that in view of EIGEN's innovative fork function, but many people are puzzled, what is the relationship between the pledge waiting period and the fork? This requires a discussion of its abstract token economics.
Recently, Eigenlayer researcher @0xkydo also bullished me about the intersubjective innovative token paradigm. I have previously written an article and done a system analysis: https://x.com/tmel0211/status/1785527871605502320.
Simply put, EIGEN is an "uncertain" token. Any AVS node or individual can initiate a fork of the Eigenlayer protocol, and ultimately only the protocol and corresponding EIGEN token that the majority of people choose to support will be legal.
This design embodies the profound Tokenomics design philosophy and is a self-regulating and adaptive system.
This means that if some AVS or group power is too concentrated, it may be forked. If short-term speculative users are greater than long-term value users, it may also be forked. Of course, if the team's performance is seriously out of line with market expectations, there is also a chance of forking. Assuming that there is a lot of selling pressure after the opening of trading, the pledged users have enough time (7 days) to initiate a voting fork if they are unhappy. (This is an extreme case. In fact, considering the limited number of circulating tokens, the probability of temporary forking is low. This example is only used to assist understanding)
In short, compared with the expected performance of the secondary market after EIGEN goes online, Eigenlayer's intersubjective innovative token paradigm is also a focus worthy of attention. Especially now that the POS chain is facing the current situation where the staking income cannot offset the losses caused by market fluctuations, many people have doubts about the correctness of the POS chain's narrative.
This kind of token economics that is dominated by long-term value orientation and can maintain dynamic balance is worthy of reference and learning across the industry.
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