EigenLayer, the leader in Ethereum restaking protocols, today officially launched its revolutionary new platform, EigenCloud . To demonstrate its firm confidence in the long-term value of the project, a16z crypto purchased up to $70 million in EIGEN tokens , once again strategically investing in EigenLayer.
This is not just a product launch and a round of financing. It marks the official transition of EigenLayer from a bottom-level security sharing protocol to a platform-level ecosystem that empowers thousands of applications.
🧐 Why do we need EigenCloud?
Our current digital life is actually a bit "divided".
On the one hand, we have blockchain Web3 , whose superpower is "trust". For example, DeFi on Ethereum, borrowing and repaying money depends entirely on code, without worrying about the platform boss running away with the money. How cool is that! But its problems are also obvious: it is cumbersome and has limited functions . It consumes a lot of gas to calculate a complex math problem, not to mention running AI models and playing large games. Specific limitations include:
Too little software : There are thousands of open source software libraries in the Web2 world. Sorry, most of them cannot be used in blockchain and need to be written from scratch.
Hardware is too weak : Want to use a GPU to run AI? No way. All computers on the blockchain should avoid top-level configurations, otherwise there will be suspicion of "encouraging centralization."
Too narrow vision : Blockchain is an "autistic" system. Want to know what the weather is like today? Ordinary web2 applications can send an http request to get the information. However, dapps on blockchain cannot send http requests. Information from the outside world must be told to you by the "oracle", but the oracle can provide much less information (generally speaking, the oracle only provides high-value financial market information).
On the other hand, we have cloud computing ( Web2 ) , such as the familiar Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud. Its superpower is “omnipotence”. It can do whatever you want to achieve, including AI, big data, and social media (7). But its weakness is also fatal: you have to unconditionally trust the “centralized” big company.
Do you see it? One is safe but "disabled", the other is powerful but "untrustworthy". EigenCloud is here to cure this "split"! Its genius idea is: we move the complex work (application logic) from the bulky blockchain to the powerful cloud (off-chain), and then use the blockchain's "trust" magic to stamp these cloud works as "verified and trustworthy". In this way, we can have the best of both worlds!
🛠️ Three core components of EigenCloud
For example, we want to develop a “decentralized food delivery platform” called TrustEat.
First of all, since this "food delivery platform" requires complex path planning algorithms and calls to external data (such as weather APIs), these complex calculations and external data calls are beyond the ability of on-chain dApps to achieve, so they must be completed off-chain.
In fact, this "food delivery platform" also involves how to divide the profits between the platform, restaurants, and riders, as well as how to resolve disputes when they occur. These parts require the introduction of "decentralized trust" and need to be implemented on the chain to give full play to the openness and transparency of blockchain.
Therefore, this "decentralized food delivery platform" is a typical project that requires on-chain and off-chain integration. As a "verifiable cloud", EigenCloud provides the following three "core components" to simplify the development process of such projects.
EigenDA (Archives) 📜
What it does : A "public data wall" with ultra-large capacity and ultra-low cost. All inputs, outputs, and processes of off-chain calculations must be written on this wall, which is open and transparent and can be checked by anyone.
Take the example of a food delivery platform : every order you place, from the order time, the price of the dish, to the GPS route of the rider, the delivery time, and your comments, all the information is written on the "wall" of EigenDA. Want to deny your debt? No way, there is evidence to prove it!
EigenVerify (Universal Court) ⚖️
What it does : This is the key to achieving “verifiability”! A “universal arbitration court” that is always available. When someone disagrees with the calculation results off the chain, it is called to make a judgment.
Examples of food delivery platforms :
Objective dispute : You clearly paid 25 dollars, but the bill shows that you only paid 20 dollars. EigenVerify will recalculate the account like an accountant and find out the mistake.
Subjective dispute : You gave a bad review, saying "the takeaway was cold when it was delivered". The restaurant disagrees and says you gave a bad review maliciously. At this time, EigenVerify's verifiers will form a "jury" and they will check the "public data wall" of EigenDA for evidence: Did the rider take a long detour? Did the delivery time take too long? They can even introduce third-party data (for example, whether it was a rainy day). Finally, they vote to decide whether the bad review is reasonable. This is the best part of EigenVerify - verifying subjective issues !
EigenCompute (One-click deployment platform & Lego workshop) 🚀
What do you do ?
First of all, EigenCompute packages all the underlying complexities (such as how to write data to EigenDA, how to call EigenVerify). You only need to package your code into a "Docker container" and throw it up, and EigenCompute will automatically help you do all the dirty work of staking, recording, and verification. EigenCompute eliminates the need for developers to master complex blockchain knowledge, making the entire decentralized application development process as simple and smooth as ordinary Web2 applications.
Secondly, the core advantage of EigenCompute is that it allows developers to easily combine and use various AVSs developed by others without "reinventing the wheel". These AVSs are like "smart Lego blocks" that have been built and have different functions. EigenCompute makes combining these AVSs as simple as building Lego blocks through standardized interfaces and unified payment models. This greatly improves development efficiency and lowers the development threshold.
Finally, developers only need to build and deploy the application logic once. The results calculated by EigenCompute off-chain can be used by any smart contract on the L1 or L2 chain, achieving the effect of "build once, deploy everywhere".
Examples of food delivery platforms :
In the past, you might have needed to write a complex AI pricing algorithm from scratch, or build a rider credit rating system yourself. But with EigenCompute, need AI pricing? Directly call a ready-made, verified "AI pricing AVS". Need to process user data? Connect to a reliable "data processing AVS". Need to access payments from other blockchains? Integrate a secure "cross-chain bridge AVS".
Developers can package their own code (including both their own code and code that calls other AVS) into Docker, and then "one-click deployment" to EigenCompute. In this way, a decentralized food delivery platform is up and running!
When you actually pick up your phone and order a takeaway on TrustEat, what exactly happens behind the scenes?
Step 1: On-chain trigger. You have selected the dishes and click "Order and Pay". At this point, you initiate a request in the TrustEat smart contract on the blockchain. This request will not immediately complete the complex fee calculation on the chain, because that would be too slow and too expensive. Instead, the smart contract will be like a "flare" to trigger EigenCloud off-chain to start working , allowing it to calculate the total cost of this order and how to divide the bill.
Step 2: Off-chain calculation and verification. EigenCompute off-chain immediately received the task. It starts running a complex pricing program, and may call other AVS to obtain real-time weather and traffic conditions to calculate the most fair delivery fee. The key step is here: all the inputs of this calculation (your order, restaurant location, weather data, etc.) and the final output (total price of XX yuan, of which the restaurant charges A yuan, the rider charges B yuan, and the platform charges C yuan) will be packaged and published to the "public archive" of EigenDA for public display . At the same time, EigenVerify is always monitoring all of this. By default, it believes that the calculation result is correct. But once anyone (you, the restaurant or the rider) objects to the result, EigenVerify will immediately intervene and use the public data on EigenDA for review or arbitration to ensure that the result is absolutely fair.
Step 3: On-chain settlement. When the calculation result is verified (or after a short public notice period when no one raises an objection), a result with a "verified" gold medal label will be securely passed back to the TrustEat smart contract on the chain . After receiving the result, the smart contract will safely execute the last step: deduct the total fee from your authorized wallet, and pay the amount to the restaurant, rider and platform in proportion to complete the settlement.
💰 EIGEN and bEIGEN: Two "banknotes" for drive systems
To make such a huge system run, "fuel" is definitely needed, and this fuel is the EIGEN token . But it is very special, with a "dual token" model.
EIGEN : This is ordinary "cash". You can buy and sell it at will on the exchange, or use it for DeFi financial management. Those who hold it don't have to worry about the complicated pledge, quarrels, and forks within EigenCloud. The years are quiet and good, and it has nothing to do with you.
bEIGEN : You can think of it as a "work permit". When you want to participate in the construction of EigenCloud, such as being a "juror" to earn arbitration fees, you have to pledge your EIGEN "cash" and exchange it for this bEIGEN "work permit". Taking a work permit means that you promise to work honestly. If you vote recklessly or do bad things, your "work permit" (along with your pledged cash) will be slashed.
This design is very clever; it separates speculators from builders, making the entire system more stable (29).
What if most people with "work permits" team up to do bad things? For example, more than half of the "jurors" took bribes and deliberately made a wrong judgment. At this time, the ultimate weapon is to be used - forkability .
Any honest minority, as long as he firmly believes that the majority is wrong, can pay a huge price (such as destroying part of his own tokens) to initiate a "fork". At this time, the EIGEN token will split into two versions: an old version that follows the bad guys, and a new version that represents justice.
Then, the entire community, including exchanges, users, and project owners, will have to choose sides and vote with "money" (EIGEN tokens). If everyone supports the new version that represents justice, then the old version tokens in the hands of the majority who do evil will instantly become worthless , and their entire fortune will be wiped out.
It is precisely because of this "mutual destruction" nuclear weapon that no one dares to easily commit large-scale evil. This provides the ultimate trust guarantee for solving the most difficult subjective problems (such as "the takeaway was cold when it was delivered").
🆚 ZK coprocessor: a lesson from the past
It should be pointed out that this idea of migrating complex calculations to the off-chain is not the first of its kind by EigenCloud. Previously, there was a very popular concept called "ZK Coprocessor", which also migrated complex calculations to the off-chain and then submitted the calculation results to the smart contract on the chain. Along with the off-chain results, a ZK Proof is submitted. The on-chain contract checks this ZK Proof to ensure that the entire off-chain calculation is safe, effective, and reliable. ZK Coprocessor realizes the integration of "complex off-chain calculations + on-chain trust" through ZK technology.
EigenCloud and ZK Coprocessor have the same goal, but their technical routes are different:
ZK coprocessor : It is like a rigorous mathematician . It can use cryptography to prove to you 100% that the calculation process of an objective fact is correct. For example, "1+1=2" or "Your credit card bill this month is 1,000 yuan." It pursues absolute mathematical correctness . But it cannot tell you subjective questions such as "Who sings better, Jay Chou or me?"
EigenCloud : It is more like an economist and sociologist . It uses economic games (doing evil will result in big losses) and social consensus (the right and wrong are ultimately determined by community forks) to ensure the credibility of the results. Its core advantage is that it can handle those subjective and verifiable problems, such as "Who sings better, me or Jay Chou" (because if someone is willing to start the EIGEN fork for this problem, I am afraid they will lose miserably).
Notice that I mentioned that ZK Coprocessor was "very popular before", but now this technology has been silent for a long time. In addition to the difficulty of ZK technical engineering implementation and the inability to handle subjective issues, the weak market demand is also an important reason. The business demand for complex computing has been well implemented by a series of Web2 technologies. Most people do not see the necessity of adding a "decentralized trust" to this complex computing, so no one is willing to pay for it.
This is also a lesson that ZK Coprocessor has left for EigenCloud. If you use EigenCloud to develop a "decentralized Uber" or "decentralized Ele.me", the chances of success are slim. The key to a successful project is whether you can find PMF (Product-Market Fit) and find an irreplaceable application scenario of "complex computing off-chain + trust on-chain".
🚀 Why launch EigenCloud now?
Finally, let's talk about something interesting. Why did the EigenLayer team release EigenCloud at this point in time?
Let me tell you a new story : To be honest, the price performance of EIGEN tokens has not been very good recently, and it has dropped 79% from its peak . The story of "re-staking" alone is a bit abstract, and the market doesn't quite understand it. Now that EigenCloud has been launched, the story has become "building a verifiable layer for the next generation of the Internet", and it has also attracted a $70 million investment from top venture capital firms such as a16z. This imagination space has been opened up and can effectively boost market confidence.
Find something for the token : Previously, EigenLayer collected tens of billions of dollars in pledged funds, but there were not many AVS projects that really needed these "security services". Even fewer AVS needed to use EIGEN to protect security. Without sufficient application scenarios, the price of EIGEN tokens would naturally not go up. Now, EigenDA, EigenVerify, EigenCompute, these "protagonist" applications, all rely on EIGEN tokens to drive. This has created real and massive demand for EIGEN, which can support the price of the token.
Let's play together : In the past, developing an AVS was as difficult as building a public chain. Now with EigenCompute, the threshold is greatly lowered. It can combine the AVS developed by predecessors to avoid developing everything from scratch. EigenCompute also shields developers from complex blockchain knowledge and technologies such as staking and verification. With EigenCloud, the process of developing Web3 applications is as simple and smooth as developing ordinary Web2 applications. With more developers, there will be more applications; with more applications, it will be easier to develop new applications, the entire ecosystem will be alive, and the value of EIGEN tokens will naturally rise. This is a powerful "flywheel effect".
Summarize
Well, that’s all for today’s sharing. In general, EigenCloud is a very ambitious project . It is not just a technology upgrade, but also a gamble on the infrastructure of the future digital world.
It attempts to combine the powerful functions of Web2 and the reliable trust of Web3 in an ingenious way, especially its ability to solve "subjective problems", opening the door to the Web3 world for countless complex applications such as AI, social networking, and games.
Of course, the road ahead is long and there are many challenges. But in any case, EigenCloud has drawn an exciting blueprint for us: a future where all digital behaviors are verifiable and trustworthy.
Let’s wait and see if it can really usher in a new era of “verifiable economy”!
