Blockchain’s next stage of growth depends on addressing the challenges of security, scalability, and usability that have limited its reach. The critical step toward widespread adoption involves bridging the gap between innovation and accessibility. EigenLayer, a breakthrough restaking protocol for Ethereum, is making this effort easier.
Ava Protocol’s intent-based automation infrastructure and Gasp’s cross-rollup protocol are both EigenLayer AVSs (Actively Validated Services), using the restaking protocol for security and scalability. In a recent conversation, Gasp CEO Peter Kris and Sam Shev, Ava Protocol’s Head of Marketing, discussed how EigenLayer is positioned to help push blockchain forward.
Their discussion broadly covered adoption, fragmentation, and security models, providing insights into how EigenLayer is supporting developers and projects in creating a more accessible and interconnected web3 ecosystem.
Driving Adoption
The importance of lowering barriers to user adoption was a central theme. In order to achieve mainstream success, decentralized apps and services need to become more user-friendly. Sam emphasized this point, stressing the importance of abstraction — like smart wallets and no-code interfaces — to make web3 more accessible to general users.
“The way you get my mother on web3, or my friend who’s a novice on web3, is they shouldn’t even realize they’re on web3,” he said.
Peter shared this sentiment, noting the need for practical, everyday use cases that go beyond speculative involvement in crypto. Gasp, as an Ethereum-native cross-rollup protocol and DEX, aims to simplify cross-chain liquidity while providing a gas-free, MEV-protected trading experience.“We have to think about other use cases, like where people would engage with crypto on at least a weekly basis,” Peter remarked. “Not just log into my Coinbase account once in three months.”
EigenLayer makes it easier for developers to bootstrap new services and share security, which reduces costs and operational complexity. Developers are able to build more scalable and efficient services that can support better UX innovations like gasless transactions and abstraction layers, making web3 interactions smoother for end users.
Unified Security
Security fragmentation is a central challenge in web3. Each new decentralized service must be independently secured, leading to inefficiencies and increased costs. EigenLayer’s restaking model solves this by allowing ETH stakers to extend their staked funds across multiple applications without combining them into separate pools. This enables decentralized services to share Ethereum’s cryptoeconomic security, substantially reducing security fragmentation within the ecosystem.
Sam emphasized the need for greater connectivity between the fragmented ecosystems, likening the current state of web3 to a collection of planets, each in isolation with its own gravitational pull. As he put it, “Right now, the center of gravity in web3 is Ethereum.... Web3 needs to have rocket ships connecting all those planets together.”
While EigenLayer doesn’t address the technical fragmentation between blockchains, its framework for shared security among Ethereum-based dapps and services simplifies security for cross-rollup and multi-layer solutions, paving the way for more secure collaborations.
Peter highlighted this potential, noting how EigenLayer’s model can unify security across diverse Ethereum applications — and even hinting at how its shared security model could theoretically extend beyond Ethereum to benefit other major blockchain networks.
“The beauty of EigenLayer is that essentially any blockchain or any alt layer one can just tap into the security of Ethereum,” he said. Prefacing it as a “very, very wild idea,” Peter posited a scenario where Solana decides that it wants to tap into Ethereum’s capitalization for security.“Solana could technically tap into EigenLayer and source the security from Ethereum. It is technically possible,” he noted. “So it’s not only about building new projects, which we, of course, need. But even all the existing chains out there, all of them can be unified under one EigenLayer umbrella, and even the shared security aspect.”
EigenLayer Update
EigenLayer unveiled its new security model this month, so the conversation naturally addressed slashing — a critical, upcoming component of the staking protocol’s framework. Slashing disincentivizes validators or operators who engage in malicious behavior or fail to meet performance standards, preserving network integrity.
“The slashing feature is the final completion feature of the restaked security because without slashing, the security doesn’t make sense,” Peter explained. Slashing penalizes bad actors and aligns economic incentives within the EigenLayer ecosystem to maintain high security standards, motivating operators to act in the network’s best interests.
Sam Shev highlighted the infrastructure benefits of slashing, pointing out that it can also improve reliability: “The other great thing about slashing is it puts economic pressure on operators who can provide better uptime on better storage.”
By enforcing higher standards for service uptime and performance, slashing contributes to a more reliable and secure blockchain ecosystem, which is essential for encouraging widespread adoption among developers and institutional users. Each EigenLayer AVS sets its own slashing rules, customizing the security model to its needs.
The Path Ahead
EigenLayer enables decentralized services and infrastructure to tap into Ethereum’s security, strengthening the integrity of the ecosystem while helping to accelerate the development of user-friendly applications. This creates a foundation for more secure cross-rollup and multi-layer collaboration, as well as increased mainstream adoption.
As we steadily see more EigenLayer AVSs like Ava Protocol and Gasp emerge, the broad impact on web3 accessibility will complete blockchain’s evolution from niche technology to essential digital infrastructure.
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