The Protocol: EigenLayer’s ‘Intersubjective Forking’ Is Objectively Not Done

EigenLayer,
the
Ethereum
“restaking”
project
that
quickly
shot
to
the
top
ranks
of
the
DeFi
leaderboards
thanks
to
so-called
airdrop
farmers,
finally
acknowledged
plans
to
launch
its
own
EIGEN
token.
The
terms
of
the
planned
airdrop
–
or
“stakedrop”
as
Eigen
Foundation
described
it
–
left
many
traders
disappointed,
especially

those
who
failed
to
manage
their
expectations.
And
there
were
also
lots
of
questions
about
how
the
EIGEN
tokenomics
will
work
–
and
when.
In
this
week’s
episode,
we
attempt
to
simplify
it
all;
readers
should
manage
their
expectations.

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INTERSUBJECTIFYING
THE
FORKIFICATION:
The
Ethereum
restaking
project

EigenLayer,
whose
plan
to
repurpose
the
Ethereum
blockchain’s
security
to
hordes
of
additional
protocols
has
prompted

systemic
risk
warnings
from
Vitalik
Buterin
himself,
released
a

43-page
whitepaper
on
its
forthcoming
EIGEN
token
–
more
than
twice
as
long
as
the
original

19-page
whitepaper
on
EigenLayer.
To
address
the
concerns,
the
project,
led
by
the

sesquipedalian
computer
engineer

Sreeram
Kannan,
came
up
with
a
new
plan
for
something
called
“intersubjective
forking.”
The
purpose
of
this
mechanism
would
be
to
take
care
of
“instances
of
misbehavior
that
cannot
be
objectively
identified
on-chain,
yet
any
two
reasonable
observers
would
agree
that
a
penalty
is
deserved.”
If
such
an
“intersubjective
fault”
were
to
occur,
the
EIGEN
token
could
be
forked
without
having
to
fork
the
main
Ethereum
blockchain.
Are
you
with
me
so
far?
Well,
there’s
a
catch,
according
to
a

blog
post:
Very
little
of
this
will
be
functional
when
the
EIGEN
token
launches:
“With
its
design
being
completely
novel,
the
concept
needs
to
be
absorbed
and
discussed
widely
by
the
ecosystem
participants.
The
initial
implementation
of
intersubjective
staking
at
this
launch
mirrors
the
full
protocol
to
only
a
limited
extent.
However,
there
are
still
several
parameters
that
need
to
be
determined
for
full
actuation.”
Such
a
not-really-fully-functional
system
would
echo
EigenLayer’s
mainnet
launch
a
few
weeks
ago,
where,
as

detailed
by
Coindesk,
crucial
promised
features,
including
the
paramount
“slashing”
and
“attributable
security”
mechanisms,
were
held
back
from
the
launch,
because
they
weren’t
ready.
It
goes
without
saying
that
a
lot
of
these
details
were
lost
on
crypto
traders
who
had
poured
some
$15
billion
of
deposits
into
the
project,
many
of
them
merely
hoping
to
qualify
for
the
EIGEN
token
airdrop
that
roughly
zero
people
in
crypto
doubted
would
eventually
come.
The

parsimoniousness
of
the
terms,
however,
apparently
left
many
of
these
so-called
airdrop
farmers
wanting.
“Not
all
feedback
was
glowing,”
as
the

Bankless
newsletter
put
it,
and
complaints
centered
partly
on
the
token’s
initial
period
of
“non-transferability.”
Only
15%
of
the
tokens
will
go
to
the
“stakedrop”
–
the
Eigen
Foundation’s
term
–
and
more
than
half
of
the
tokens
will
be
allocated
to
investors
and
early
contributors,
with
unlocks
starting
after
just
one
year.

In
this
schematic
from
the
EIGEN
token
whitepaper,
“intersubjectively
attributable
faults”
lies
somewhere
between
“objectively
attributable
faults”
and
“subjective
faults.”

MIXING
IT
UP:
Ratcheting
up
a
campaign
against
creators
of
blockchain
protocols
allegedly
used
to
facilitate
money
laundering,
U.S.
prosecutors
charged

Samourai
Wallet
founders
Keonne
Rodriguez,
35,
and
William
Lonergan
Hill,
65,
with

conspiracy
to
commit
money
laundering.
Rodriguez
has

pleaded
not
guilty.
Samourai
Wallet
was
(its
servers
have
been
seized)
a
bitcoin
wallet
that
promised
to
“keep
your
transactions
private
and
your
identity
masked”
through
a
privacy-preserving
service
called
“Whirlpool,”
as

reported
by
CoinDesk’s
Daniel
Kuhn.
U.S.
President
Joe
Biden’s
administration
has
ramped
up
efforts
to
knock
down
these
coin
“mixing”
services.
That
includes
arresting
Bitcoin
Fog
operator
Roman
Sterlingov

in
April
2021
and
participating
in
the
arrest
of
the
co-founders
of

Tornado
Cash
in
2023.
The
cases
are
prompting
a
fresh
examination
of
the
legal
issues
around
open-source
software.

Is
code
speech?
Late
last
week,
companies
behind
the
popular
Lightning
wallet
Phoenix
and
privacy-preserving
Wasabi
Wallet

took
steps
to
close
off
access
to
U.S.
customers
–
raising
the
additional
question
of
whether
blockchain
innovation
is
more
likely
to
occur
outside
the
U.S.
due
to
regulatory
pressure
or
uncertainty.

Schematic
illustrating
basic
concepts
of
how
Samourai
Whirlpool
works.
(Samourai)

Top
picks
of
the
past
week
from


our
Protocol
Village

column,
highlighting
key
blockchain
tech
upgrades
and
news.

1.
SEDA,
a
data
transmission
and
computation
network
that
enables
a

permissionless
environment
for
developers
to
deploy
data
feeds,
announced
the
launch
of
its
mainnet
genesis
event.

2.
Ocean,
the
Bitcoin
mining
pool
backed
by
Jack
Dorsey
and
led
by
longtime
Bitcoin
Core
developer
Luke
Dashjr,
said
miners
can
now

receive
payments
over
the
Bitcoin
Lightning
Network
using
the
Lightning
technology
BOLT12.

3.
Bitcoin
layer-2
project

Stacks
announced
a
“significant”
delay
to
the
activation
of
its
highly
anticipated

Nakamoto
upgrade,
citing
the
need
for
eight
more
weeks
of
development
time.
In
a

blog
post,
Mitchell
Cuevas,
who
heads
the
Stacks
Open
Internet
Foundation,
wrote:
“Shifting
dates
this
late
in
the
game
is
not
fun
and
I
recognize
this
is
disappointing.”

4.
Minima,
a
layer-1
blockchain
focused
on
DePIN,
is
working
with
Online
Payment
Platform
(OPP)
on
a
project
that
would
allow
electric-vehicle
drivers
to

rent
out
private
chargers
to
other
members
of
the
public.

5.


Ether.Fi,
the

biggest
liquid
restaking
protocol
in
the
Ethereum
blockchain
ecosystem,
has
integrated

SSV.Network‘s
distributed
validator
technology
(DVT)
into
its
platform,
according
to
the
team.
“In
recent
weeks,

Ether.Fi
has
onboarded
almost
2,000
validators
to

SSV.Network,”
according
to
a
press
release,
out
of
about
40,000
overall.

Fundraisings

Movement
Labs
co-founders
Cooper
Scanlon
and
Rushi
Manche
(Movement
Labs)

Data
and
Tokens

Regulatory
and
Policy

Predictions
earlier
this
year
that
bitcoin
might
not
see
a
big
rally
in
connection
with
last
month’s
quadrennial
halving
proved
true,
in
hindsight.
The
bitcoin
(BTC)
price
slid
15%
in
April,
snapping
a
seven-month
winning
streak
that
was
the
longest
in
trading
data
going
back
to
2012.

Even
so,
bitcoin
managed
to
lose
less
than
every
other
coin
in
the

CoinDesk
20
index
of
digital
assets.
The
index
itself
fell
26%.

Amid
the
market
selloff,

NEAR
held
up
the
best
among
smart-contract
blockchains.
Aptos’s

APT
lost
53%.

May
1-4:

Bitcoin++,
Austin,
Texas.

May
9-10:

Bitcoin
Asia,
Hong
Kong.

May
18-27:

Berlin
Blockchain
Week.

May
29-31:

Consensus,
Austin
Texas.

May
29-31:

Bitcoin
Seoul.

June
11-13:

Apex,
the
XRP
Ledger
Developer
Summit,
Amsterdam.

July
8-11:

EthCC,
Brussels.

July
25-27:

Bitcoin
2024,
Nashville.

Aug.
19-21:

Web3
Summit,
Berlin.

Sept.
19-21:

Solana
Breakpoint,
Singapore.

Sept.
1-7:

Korea
Blockchain
Week,
Seoul.

Sept.
30-Oct.
2:

Messari
Mainnet,
New
York.

Oct.
9-11:

Permissionless,
Salt
Lake
City.

Oct.
21-22:

Cosmoverse,
Dubai.

Oct.
23-24:

Cardano
Summit,
Dubai.

Oct.
30-31:

Chainlink
SmartCon,
Hong
Kong

Nov
12-14:

Devcon
7,
Bangkok.

Nov.
20-21:

North
American
Blockchain
Summit,
Dallas.

Feb.
19-20,
2025:

ConsensusHK,
Hong
Kong