The co-founders of Lido, one of the most prominent liquid staking protocols, along with the influential venture capital firm Paradigm, are reportedly backing a new competitor to EigenLayer.
The new project, Symbiotic, will enter the burgeoning field of “restaking” protocols, a niche that EigenLayer has been dominating. Symbiotic is being developed by the team behind Stakemind, a service known for its staking solutions.
Internal documents reveal that Lido’s co-founders, Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, through their venture firm Cyber Fund, and Paradigm, are the forces behind Symbiotic.
This collaboration brings together significant expertise and financial backing, setting the stage for a potential shake-up in the DeFi sector.
The move comes on the heels of EigenLayer’s airdrop, which failed to meet community expectations.
The airdrop was part of a broader strategy to distribute tokens and incentivize participation in the EigenLayer ecosystem. However, the execution fell short, leading to dissatisfaction among users and a decline in confidence in the platform.
Symbiotic’s Market Strategy
Symbiotic aims to offer a permissionless restaking protocol that provides flexible mechanisms for decentralized networks to coordinate node operators and providers of economic security. It will allow users to restake using Lido’s staked ether (stETH) token and other popular assets that are not natively compatible with EigenLayer.
The introduction of Symbiotic, backed by such prominent figures, could signal a new era in DeFi, particularly in the liquid staking domain. The project’s approach to restaking could attract users seeking alternatives to EigenLayer, especially those disillusioned by the airdrop’s outcome.
Symbiotic is a new project that is tokenless, a factor that may supercharge mass migration from Eigenlayer.
The confluence of these factors put Symbiotic in a great position to challenge EigenLayer’s dominance and possibly set new standards for restaking protocols.
Looking to the future, the success of Symbiotic could inspire further innovation and competition, ultimately benefiting the broader blockchain ecosystem.
