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EigenLayer and Ether.fi both successfully transitioned. What will be the next step in the race to re-stake?

2025-07-15 12:30
Read this article in 10 Minutes
Re-staking is not dead, but its "single-threaded growth mode" may be difficult to sustain.
Original Title: "EigenLayer, Ether.fi Both Transform, Is the Staking Narrative Fading?"
Original Author: Fairy, ChainCatcher


In the first half of 2024, the concept of secondary income sparked a market frenzy, and "restaking" once became the core topic sweeping the crypto ecosystem. EigenLayer rose to prominence, and projects like Ether.fi, Renzo, among others emerged one after another, with restaking tokens (LRT) blooming everywhere.


However, today, the two leading projects in this field have both chosen to transform:


Ether.fi announced its transformation into a crypto neobank, planning to launch a cash card and staking services tailored to U.S. users;


Eigen Labs announced a staff reduction of approximately 25%, restructuring resources to focus entirely on the new product EigenCloud.


The once hot "restaking" trend is now at a turning point. Does the strategic adjustment of these two leading projects foreshadow the obsolescence of this track?


Emergence, Craze, and Consolidation


Over the past few years, the restaking track has gone through a cycle from concept exploration to intensive capital inflow.


According to RootData, the restaking track has seen the emergence of over 70 projects to date. EigenLayer in the Ethereum ecosystem was the first to introduce the ReStaking model to the market, giving rise to a collective outbreak of liquidity restaking protocols such as Ether.fi, Renzo, Kelp DAO, among others. Subsequently, new structural projects like Symbiotic and Karak have also emerged one after another.


In 2024, the number of funding events surged to 27, with a total fundraising of nearly $230 million, making it one of the hottest tracks in the crypto market. As we entered 2025, the pace of fundraising began to slow down, and the overall heat of the track gradually cooled off.



At the same time, track reshuffling has accelerated. Already, 11 projects, including Moebius Finance, goTAO, FortLayer, have shut down, gradually cleaning up the early-stage bubble.


Currently, EigenLayer remains the leader of the track, with a TVL of approximately $14.2 billion, accounting for over 63% of the market share in the entire industry. In its ecosystem, Ether.fi holds about 75% share, while Kelp DAO and Renzo account for 12% and 8.5%, respectively.



Deleveraging Narrative: The Cooling Signal Behind the Data


As of now, the total TVL of DeFi protocols is approximately $224 billion, a 22.7% drop from the historical peak in December 2024 (around $290 billion). Despite the overall high value locked, DeFi's leverage growth momentum has shown signs of slowing down.


Source: Defillama


The decline in user activity is even more significant. According to The Block data, the daily active depositors for Ethereum's liquidity mining have plummeted from the peak in July 2024 (thousands of people) to just over thirty people currently, while EigenLayer's daily unique deposit addresses have dropped to single digits.


Source: The Block


From the validators' perspective, the appeal of DeFi leverage is also diminishing. The current daily active DeFi staking validators on Ethereum account for less than 3% compared to regular staking validators.



Furthermore, tokens of projects like Ether.fi, EigenLayer, Puffer, have experienced pullbacks of over 70% from their highs. Overall, although the DeFi leverage track still maintains a certain scale, user activity and enthusiasm for participation have significantly declined, and the ecosystem is entering a "deleveraging" state. The narrative-driven effect is weakening, and the track growth is hitting a bottleneck.


Top Projects' Transformation: Is the DeFi Leverage Business Model Fizzling Out?


As the "airdrop period bonus" fades away and the track's hype subsides, with the expected return curve smoothing out, DeFi leverage projects are beginning to face the question: How can the platform achieve long-term growth?


Take Ether.fi as an example. It achieved over $3.5 million in revenue for two consecutive months at the end of 2024, but by April 2025, the revenue had fallen to $2.4 million. In the reality of slowing growth momentum, a single DeFi leverage function may find it challenging to sustain a complete business narrative.


It was in April that Ether.fi began to expand its product boundaries, transforming into a "crypto neobank" that builds a closed-loop of financial operations through real-world scenarios like "bill payments, salary disbursement, savings, and spending." The dual-track combination of "cash card + DeFi leverage" has become its new engine to activate user stickiness and retention.



Contrary to Ether.fi's "Application Layer Breakthrough," EigenLayer has chosen a more infrastructure-focused strategic refactoring.


On July 9th, Eigen Labs announced a reduction of approximately 25% of its workforce and a redirection of resources towards the new product developer platform EigenCloud, which also attracted a new $70 million investment from a16z. EigenCloud integrates EigenDA, EigenVerify, EigenCompute, striving to provide a common trust infrastructure for on-chain and off-chain applications.


The transformation of Ether.fi and EigenLayer, although taking different paths, essentially points to two solutions guided by the same logic: transforming "re-staking" from an endpoint narrative to a "starting module," shifting from the purpose itself to a means of building more complex application systems.


Re-staking is not dead, but its "single-threaded growth mode" may be challenging to continue. Only when it is embedded in a narrative of more network effects does it possess the ability to continuously attract users and capital.



The re-staking track, ignited by the mechanism design of "secondary gains," is now seeking new footholds and vitality in a more complex application landscape.


Original Article Link


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