Macauley Peterson

Symbiotic, the universal staking protocol, has launched a new rewards feature that allows protocols to distribute their own native tokens directly to stakers and node operators.&nbsp;



Dubbed External Rewards, the mechanism is live across eight partner networks.&nbsp;



The feature is a shift in the incentive alignment Symbiotic brings to its modular, economic coordination role in multichain networks. Native token incentives are combined with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/symbiotic">Symbiotic</a> Points — presumed to be a precursor to a Symbiotic-specific token — to bootstrap decentralized security and reward participation for networks, without requiring them to build custom staking systems.



“This launch is a pivotal moment,” said Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin. “External rewards are proof that shared security is delivering measurable value — and networks are willing to pay for access.”



Hyperlane, one of the largest partners live at launch, is distributing <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/hyper">HYPER</a> to stakers securing its Warp Routes. Cycle and Tanssi are offering their native tokens as rewards to incentivize capital formation on their networks. <a href="https://blockworks.co/analytics/spark">Spark’s Overdrive</a> campaign adds SPK staking and points to the mix.



Other use cases include Ditto Network, which rewards keepers who enable trustless automation, and Primev, which compensates validators supporting MEV preconfirmation. Kalypso is using Symbiotic to distribute points in its ZK proof marketplace, while Omni has committed $10 million in rewards to SolverNet participants powering its intent-based execution layer.



The shift, according to Symbiotic, is that shared security is becoming a marketplace. Networks are now competing for validator attention through incentive design, and Symbiotic is positioning itself as the coordination layer where that competition unfolds. The approach echoes a similar strategy from <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/babylon-genesis-launch-l1-bitcoin-liquidity">Babylon</a>, which allows emerging chains to bootstrap economic security by letting users stake BTC natively.



Previously, launching a decentralized security model meant building bespoke staking logic. Symbiotic’s approach abstracts that away. Protocols can offer liquid restaked assets (like ETH or LSTs), hybrid models, or their own native tokens, all within a shared staking interface. Points and token rewards from multiple sources are displayed side-by-side, giving contributors a unified view of their rewards across networks.



While EigenLayer’s Permissionless Token Support now lets AVSs (Actively Validated Services) restake with any ERC-20 token — not just ETH or LSTs — broadening the assets that can participate in Ethereum’s shared security pool, Symbiotic’s External Rewards takes that a step further; tokens are not just security collateral, but actively distributed their native token as a reward to stakers and operators.



Both allow restaking to be applied to financial AVSs, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cap-labs-eigenlayer">such as Cap Labs’ credit-underwriting</a> use case.



As more modular chains come online and competition for validator capital intensifies, Symbiotic is betting that unified infrastructure, and flexible reward tooling, will differentiate it among the alternatives for attracting capital.



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staking

Symbiotic launches token-based rewards across eight networks

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">subscribe</a>.



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Restaking is evolving. What started as an Ethereum-native capital efficiency play is now transforming into a cross-chain economic coordination layer that spans protocols, assets and use cases.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/symbiotic">Symbiotic</a> announced today a $29 million Series A, led by <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/Pantera">Pantera Capital</a>, to launch its Universal Staking Framework. The move goes toward supporting any asset securing any network — L1 or L2, modular or integrated. Symbiotic is active on <a href="https://www.binance.com/en-JP/square/post/2024-08-16-symbiotic-announces-integration-of-14-networks-into-shared-security-framework-12233736521281">14 networks</a>, a number expected to more than double in the coming months, providing programmable slashing, cross-chain collateral composition and new financial primitives like staking-backed insurance and “structured risk products.”



“This isn’t a pivot, it&#8217;s an expansion — a natural progression of the vision we started with,” Symbiotic co-founder Misha Putiatin told Blockworks. “From the outset, we focused on building a flexible coordination layer that supports a wide range of use cases.”



While <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eigenlayer">EigenLayer</a> remains Ethereum-centric, with restaking built primarily via ETH-native validators and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/liquid-staking">liquid staking</a> tokens (LSTs), Symbiotic expands the model across networks and collateral types — enabling non-EVM assets and modular AVSs to coordinate security under a unified staking framework.



Of course, EigenLayer isn’t standing still. Just last week, Eigen Labs <a href="https://x.com/eigenlayer/status/1912885738116620670">activated</a> slashing on mainnet — the final piece of its original roadmap. In terms of scale, it’s way out in front. It even <a href="https://x.com/molinaxis/status/1914740005978677677">launched</a> its own marketing agency. More than 190 AVSs (actively validated services) are now building on EigenLayer, including heavyweights like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/LayerZero">LayerZero</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/infura">Infura</a>. With slashing now live, these services can enforce performance guarantees backed by economic penalties.



EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan called it “the next phase in our mission to transform Ethereum’s trust into a programmable primitive.”



As EigenLayer cements its role as Ethereum’s trust marketplace, other players are extending the restaking model in novel directions. Puffer Finance, for example, <a href="https://x.com/puffer_finance/status/1914405809188184399">came out</a> earlier this week with staking and restaking vaults for institutions. Designed for asset managers, DAOs and custodians, Puffer’s platform combines ETH staking with EigenLayer AVS restaking together within a compliance-ready framework. Features include validator permissioning, withdrawal policies and modular configuration of restaking exposure.



Meanwhile, <a href="https://x.com/moremarketsxyz/status/1899384972404023394">MoreMarkets</a> — formerly Nuffle Labs — is using restaking infrastructure to unlock utility for previously siloed assets like <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/xrp">XRP</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/ada">ADA</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/price/doge">DOGE</a>. By integrating with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/wormhole">Wormhole</a> and AVS-layer attestations, MoreMarkets lets users stake or provide liquidity directly from their origin chain.



“Users shouldn’t be facing a bridging UI,” MoreMarkets CEO Altan Tutar told Blockworks. “They should just click once — from wherever they are — and start earning.”



Together, these developments mark a shift in how staking is conceived and deployed. It&#8217;s no longer just a consensus mechanism, but a programmable economic substrate. EigenLayer proved that trust could be abstracted. Symbiotic is showing that it can be recomposed. And protocols like Puffer and MoreMarkets are building the interfaces to bring it to institutions and long-tail assets.



Restaking isn’t just maturing, it’s mutating.



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0xResearch Newsletter

Restaking goes ‘universal’

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">subscribe</a>.



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After two years of development, five independent audits and a rigorous code competition, Symbiotic officially <a href="https://x.com/symbioticfi/status/1884266642416492713">launched</a> on Ethereum mainnet yesterday. As the first feature-complete shared security protocol with slashing, Symbiotic provides an immutable, decentralized framework that eliminates single points of failure and external risks for networks looking to secure their ecosystems.



&#8220;The logic behind Symbiotic was quite simple,&#8221; one of its co-founders, Misha Putiatin, <a href="https://x.com/defi_dad/status/1884698966731706443?s=46&amp;t=yjAdM2ddX0KgGQimu7jcDQ">explained</a> on The Edge podcast. &#8220;How do we do this protocol in a way that has the least amount of drawbacks?&#8221; The result is a security layer that is immutable and permissionless.



&nbsp;&#8220;The core is immutable, we can&#8217;t gatekeep, we can&#8217;t change politics, add fees, do break-offs. Do any stuff that can be hurtful, and people should calculate before they choose Symbiotic,” Putiatin said.



While blockchain infrastructure has become more modular and accessible, security implementation around new networks has been a cutting-edge design space. Traditionally, these networks faced a difficult trade-off: either invest heavily in building bespoke security solutions or compromise sovereignty by adopting pre-packaged security frameworks.



Symbiotic resolves this dilemma by offering a neutral coordination framework that allows networks to define every aspect of their security model — from collateral selection and operator management to slashing mechanics — while maintaining full control. Its non-upgradeable core contracts ensure an immutable security foundation,&nbsp; <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/symbiotic-seed-round-shared-security">like Uniswap</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/liquity-v2-staked-ether">Liquity</a>, preventing governance takeovers and external interventions.



With its mainnet launch, Symbiotic has already integrated 13 networks spanning a wide variety of blockchain use cases. To give just a few examples: Capx is an Ethereum layer-2 for AI agent deployment, secured through Symbiotic. HyveDA is a high-throughput decentralized data availability protocol leveraging Symbiotic’s restaking infrastructure. <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/expansion/9861c7a8-4979-11ef-b690-b3dbcd2508c2">Hyperlane</a> is a cross-chain messaging framework for seamless interoperability. And iBTC (<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/building-better-wrapped-bitcoin-for-defi">formerly DLC.Link</a>) uses Symbiotic restaking to secure its Attestor Network, enabling trust-minimized bitcoin-backed DeFi participation.



Symbiotic cites nearly 50 networks, 78 operators and 55 vaults already integrating the protocol.



The architecture is centered around Vaults — smart contracts that facilitate stake delegation, ensuring economic security through configurable accounting and slashing mechanisms. Stakers deposit assets, operators receive delegations and networks access the security they need, enabling efficient capital utilization across multiple ecosystems while preserving decentralization.



Post-mainnet launch, Symbiotic’s focus is shifting to enhance user experience and tooling for network integrations. By standardizing shared security primitives, Symbiotic is positioning itself as the foundational layer that enables networks to achieve self-sovereignty while benefiting from a robust, shared security model.



&#8220;In the future, I see absolutely anybody being able to tap into this kind of shared network to build app chains or verify anything onchain that they need, on demand,” Putiatin said.



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Can Symbiotic revive the restaking narrative?

Restaking pioneer EigenLayer has demonstrated remarkable success in attracting capital — effectively acting as a &#8220;black hole&#8221; for ether — and has become one of the largest DeFi protocols in the process.



But Symbiotic’s entrance into the shared security space with a “stake anything” design is poised to shake things up.



Since <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/eigenlayer-deploys-on-ethereum-mainnet">launching</a> on Ethereum mainnet just over a year ago, <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eigenlayer">EigenLayer</a> had sucked in about 5.4 million ETH, worth $20 billion <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/eigenlayer?denomination=ETH">at its peak</a> in early June. The protocol began raising deposit caps aggressively in early 2024, and accepting more flavors of ether.



By March, deposits had increased from under 1 million ETH to approximately 3 million. This growth rate continued even after the launch of Karak, an alternative multi-asset restaking model designed to enhance staking yields.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/universal-restaking-layer-andalusia-labs">Karak wants to introduce ‘universal restaking’ for everyone</a>



Taking the concept further, newcomer Symbiotic supports any <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/glossary/#erc-20-token">ERC-20</a> asset as collateral for restaking. This level of customization options, and a flexible restaking model, enables developers to use a wide variety of assets to secure their applications.



Ethena’s native token ENA, along with the staked version of its synthetic dollar, sUSDe, which earns yield through ether staking and the futures basis trade, yesterday became the first non-ETH-based assets to be restaked on Symbiotic.



The new sUSDe vault on Mellow Finance, which provides infrastructure to Symbiotic risk curators, rapidly hit its $40 million cap, and the ENA vault is about half full after the first day of deposits.



Both Mellow and Symbiotic were supported by <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/empire/6cc9a6fa-dfcb-11ee-a5dd-4f9a9a4a49ad">Cyber Fund</a> and are part of the <a href="https://research.lido.fi/t/lido-alliance-an-ethereum-aligned-ecosystem/7475">Lido Alliance</a>, and other Mellow vaults only accept Lido staked ether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/steth">stETH</a>), for now.&nbsp;



The Ethena vaults have three curators: MEV Capital, Re7 Labs and K3. Laurent Bourquin, a general partner at MEV Capital, says he expects liquid restaking tokens (LRTs) to be accepted as deposits in Symbiotic vaults as well.



“The main big difference is the [agnosticism] of Symbiotic in the sense that you can also let EigenLayer LRTs to come to Symbiotic,” Bourquin told Blockworks, “so you will have double slashing, hence a double yield tranche.”



Other liquid staking and restaking providers are eager to jump in the pool too, agrees Sunand Raghupathi, co-founder of both Veda Protocol and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sommelier-defi-strategy-vaults-now-live-on-arbitrum">Seven Seas Capital</a>, though not necessarily as Bourquin sees it.



“Two days after Symbiotic announced their launch —&nbsp;and, behind the scenes, they were clearly working with Mellow to build restaking infrastructure — through Veda we were actually able to launch a LRT on Symbiotic,” Raghupathi told Blockworks.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/symbiotic-seed-round-shared-security">Symbiotic aims to be the Uniswap of shared security</a>



Veda partnered with EtherFi on its “<a href="https://etherfi.gitbook.io/etherfi/liquid/super-symbiotic-lrt-vault">Super Symbiotic</a>” vault, which accepts a variety of ether derivatives — including EtherFi’s eETH — and converts them to stETH for use in Symbiotic.



Technically, Symbiotic could accept eETH itself, which would effectively be double-restaked — first in EigenLayer and then in Symbiotic — but that’s not what EtherFi does. If a user supplies eETH, it is first removed from EigenLayer.



As Misha Putiatin, co-founder of Symbiotic has noted, double restaking would be inherently risky.



“We can&#8217;t stop people from double restaking, if networks accept that, we can&#8217;t do anything about that,” Putiatin said, adding they have no plans to incentivize such behavior, however.



MEV Capital’s Bourquin thinks double restaking is inevitable.



“I think now it&#8217;s first of all FOMO — fear of missing out — from the LRTs to still being there first,” Bourquin said. “So let&#8217;s say the risk is put a bit aside for now for the simple reason that slashing doesn&#8217;t even exist yet on EigenLayer — we are talking about risk that will be there at the end of the summer.”



Although EigenLayer accepts deposits which can be delegated to Actively Validated Services (AVSes), none of these are yet live with slashing conditions in place, which will eventually put depositors’ capital at greater risk.



Ultimately, Bourquin sees the flexibility of Symbiotic as a clear plus.



“We are really bullish on Symbiotic because it avoids the hyper-centralization of LRTs into one or two or three names,” Bourquin said.



EtherFi <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/etherfi-eigenlayer-liquid-restaked-token">started as an EigenLayer restaking protocol</a> but has branched out to become a trusted brand in other areas — for instance, launching Liquid, a stablecoin vault which is managed by Seven Seas and earns high yields through myriad DeFi avenues such as liquidity provisioning, lending optimization and peg arbitrage.



By allowing its users to participate in Symbiotic, EtherFi can retain them within its ecosystem, capturing a portion of the capital flows. This approach provides an alternative to swapping out of eETH via on-chain liquidity pools, which could otherwise pressure the derivative&#8217;s stability.



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/renzo-liquid-staked-eth">What was behind the run on Renzo’s liquid restaked ETH?</a>



Even if the amount of eETH declines as a result, EtherFi retains those users through its brand and frontend, the argument goes.



“The EigenLayer view is that most assets should not be used for this,” Raghupathi said. “We&#8217;ve spent a long time discovering that ETH is in some sense the king of secure assets.”



Symbiotic’s view is market forces should determine what is or isn’t suitable collateral for AVS staking.



EigenLayer does have plans of supporting dual staking, using ETH and a bespoke cryptoasset together, but Symbiotic’s permissionless design enables that today, Raghupathi said.



“Anyone can spin up markets on Symbiotic, and so you&#8217;re going to see a much larger diversity of tokens that are being used to secure AVSes on Symbiotic than you see in EigenLayer which is very, very ETH focused.”



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EigenLayer

Does Ethena portend a Symbiotic edge over Eigen?

Shared security protocol Symbiotic came out of stealth today.&nbsp;



Symbiotic allows networks to customize their staking implementation, including collateral assets, node operator selection, rewards and penalty mechanisms. Ethereum serves as the protocol’s coordination and orchestration layer.



Whereas EigenLayer is pitched as “a marketplace for decentralized trust,” Symbiotic is a sort of operating system for decentralized coordination.



“The goal was to create a protocol that is suitable for almost any decentralized network,” Symbiotic co-founder and CEO Misha Putiatin told Blockworks.



Symbiotic acts as a thin coordination layer that offers high flexibility and control to network builders. As such, it will be immutable from launch — like Uniswap — and does not require a token to function.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Ambition to “create an industry”</h2>



Truly decentralized networks alter how we think about security, trust and coordination in the digital world. <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/bitcoin">Bitcoin</a>’s proof-of-work allowed a decentralized network of miners to secure digital transactions without relying on a central authority​.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>’s proof-of-stake achieves broadly similar levels of security using economic collateral rather than electricity consumption.



Shared security extends these concepts further by allowing multiple networks to share their resources. This enables new and emerging networks to bootstrap their growth by piggybacking on the established security of larger, more mature networks.



Implementations can involve complex coordination to ensure that node operators meet the protocol&#8217;s rules across various networks​​. Some of the most well known purveyors of shared security are <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polkadot-reaches-major-milestone-with-launch-of-parachain-auctions">Polkadot’s Relay Chain</a>, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cosmos-greenlights-interchain-security">Cosmos’ Interchain Security</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eigenlayer">EigenLayer</a>.



“Polkadot was one of the pioneers of that, and then Cosmos proceeded with their own flavor,” Putiatin said. “Our idea is that we wanted to create a protocol [with as few] tradeoffs as possible.”



Listen: <a href="https://blockworks.co/podcast/bellcurve/1cc11b5c-e809-11ee-849d-7b1f8d682b33">Restaking and Shared Security: Lessons from Cosmos, Polkadot, and Beyond</a>



Symbiotic began development about nine months ago, co-founded by Putiatin and Algys Ievlev and built by the team behind auditing and security firm Statemind. Before that, Putiatin was CEO of MixBytes, a smart contract auditing firm where Ievlev served as chief technology officer. The pair both studied in Moscow and now live in Dubai.



Their experience at Statemind led the team to “expand their mission to secure everything blockchain and everything decentralized” with Symbiotic, Putiatin said.



Symbiotic has raised a $5.8 million seed round from venture firms Paradigm — which also funded Uniswap — and cyber•Fund, the venture firm founded by early <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/lido">Lido</a> contributors Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, as CoinDesk previously <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2024/05/14/lido-co-founders-paradigm-secretly-back-eigenlayer-competitor-as-defi-battle-lines-form/">reported</a>.



The protocol’s overarching design architecture is “permissionless, neutral and flexible.”



Neutral means Symbiotic won’t ​​compete with other market participants — so no native staking, rollup or data availability offering.



To be “symbiotic” means “to run from competition like [from] fire and to be as selfless as possible, as unopinionated as possible,” Putiatin explained.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Maximally flexible</h2>



All major decisions remain with the networks who build on top of Symbiotic, such as what collateral they will accept, which node operators can participate, who resolves disputes — so slashing and punishment — and how much stake they want from each party.



A key differentiator compared to other shared security systems is that Symbiotic can accept any token and, in theory, from any chain.



To create an industry around shared security, “we needed to create a protocol that can be super modular, and the abstraction of collateral is one of these.”



Putiatin lumps that in the “neutrality” category, since even though Symbiotic is an Ethereum protocol, collateral need not be on Ethereum, although Lido staked ether (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/steth">stETH</a>) is a likely candidate as a core collateral asset.



“You can create an obligation on the Ethereum side,” he explained, “and if [the] network sees that the messaging is trusted enough, within the slashing window, the asset on another chain might be even in DeFi — actually be used somewhere — yet is reliably slashed.”



This modularity ensures that networks can adapt and evolve according to their specific security needs and stages of decentralization​.



“When you launch a centralized network there is a gap between you being super creative and innovative, having a great idea, and you are starting in a way that is safe — because you needed to build your own economic security model,” Putiatin said.



This is why we have seen a proliferation of tokens, and decentralization compromises like <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/glossary/#multi-signature-multi-sig-wallet">multisigs</a>, proof of authority networks, or subpar <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/validator">validator</a> sets, in Putiatin’s view.



“The goal for our project is to shift the narrative — you don&#8217;t have to launch natively — it&#8217;s going to be safer and easier for you to launch on top of us, on top of shared security,” he said.



He imagines the system being applied to jumpstart all kinds of networks, mentioning cross-chain <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/oracles">oracles</a>, threshold networks, reconfirmations and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/mev">MEV</a> infrastructure, interoperability and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/shared-sequencers-decentralization">shared sequencers</a>, to name a few.



“We believe that this sort of primitive can help a lot of people, and for that we need to be as neutral as possible,” Putiatin said.



While the protocol’s ambitions for shared security are massive, its architecture is deliberately minimalist.



It will be permissionless and immutable, with no multisig anywhere. It will not collect fees, nor will it rely on any centralized frontend.



“If I die and every engineer dies, our system will still be fully operational. I don&#8217;t expect our front end to be used a lot,” he said.



Launch partners include familiar names like Ethena, LayerZero and Hyperlane, plus a slew of networks that are still in the early stages of development, according to a Symbiotic <a href="https://blog.symbiotic.fi/symbiotic-intro/">blog post</a>.



Putiatin expects the Symbiotic mainnet to be up and running for some networks as soon as the end of the summer.



“Why should you create a complex protocol when you can create a really simple and flexible one?”



Updated June 12, 2024: Noted that CoinDesk previously reported Symbiotic&#8217;s venture backing.



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