The EigenLayer ecosystem has attracted major investments from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, and Binance incubator Binance Labs, gaining strong support for its restaking technique.
Eigen Labs, the software development firm behind EigenLayer, announced Thursday morning that it had raised $100 million from Andreessen Horowitz’s flagship crypto fund, a16z crypto.
In a blog post, Eigen Labs noted several reasons for partnering with a16z crypto, such as their commitment to open-source research and long-term support of the crypto industry.
“We believe that, by further unbundling cryptoeconomic security from the EVM, EigenLayer has the potential to unlock 100x faster innovation on technologies…in the same way that Ethereum unlocked 100x faster innovation at the application logic level by introducing smart contracts,” wrote a16z crypto’s general partner Ali Yahya in a blog post.
EigenLayer is widely known for its restaking technique, which extends Ethereum’s functionality by allowing crypto investors to repurpose their staked ETH to secure other blockchain networks and applications beyond Ethereum’s base layer.
Read More: 9 Top Crypto Trends to Watch for in 2024, According to a16z
Binance’s Investment
Also on Thursday, Binance Labs, the incubation subsidiary of crypto exchange Binance, announced it was investing an undisclosed amount in Renzo, a liquid derivative platform built on EigenLayer that aims to be the primary on and off-ramp for Ethereum restaking, as outlined by the protocol’s documents.
The collaboration between Binance Labs and Renzo “will accelerate the adoption of liquid staking and risk management on @EigenLayer making staking accessible to everyone,” wrote the Renzo team on X.
The two investment announcements come as the price of ether, the native cryptocurrency for the Ethereum blockchain, reached $3,000 earlier this week for the first time since April 2022, pushing its market cap above $356.5 billion at presstime, per CoinGecko.
The locked value in EigenLayer smart contracts stands at over $7.8 billion, making it the fourth-largest protocol in the crypto space, behind liquid staking platform Lido, stablecoin issuer Maker, and lending protocol Aave, data from blockchain analytics firm DefiLlama shows.
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