Founders

1/ Lots of people are disappointed with the $EIGEN airdrop 😬

I'm not here to say whether this is fair or not, but let's first discuss how @eigenlayer got here in the first place.

🧵 Restaking points, LRTs, speculation, and the +$13B in user deposits that followed.

2/ tldr on EigenLayer if you're not familiar yet

They introduced "Restaking" for third-party crypto protocols to borrow Ethereum's security.

Validators restake natively or use LSTs (Liquid Staking Tokens). Liquid Restaking Platforms also emerged.

cc @eli5_defi

⚡️ Buiding /fuul (a16z CSX), the affiliate marketing protocol
🎓 @MIT

3/ @eigenlayer introduced Restaking Points: 

"A measure of your total EigenLayer restaking contribution. Based on amount of ETH staked over time, in units of ETH per second."

Users must restake their Liquid Staking Tokens (LST) within EigenLayer ecosystem

4/ As EigenLayer started heating up as the next big thing in crypto, a whole new ecosystem of Liquid Restaking Protocols emerged.

These platforms went all in on points - not only giving out to depositors eigenlayer's restaking points but also their own

cc Redstone DeFi

5/ It is clear to me that this points program was very well executed!

This is a case study for the books on incentives programs

In just 4 month! 📈
+$13B in User Deposits
+100K Total Unique Depositors
+4,000M Total Restaking Points

Credit to Defi Llama for the chart

7/ Would have the team been better off by just rewarding tokens?

Nope, there was no token. With $EIGEN I think it will be

Was this overhyped? 

+4,000M Restaking Points - What or how much does that even mean?

People might have gone too far speculating around the token's value

8/ Final thoughts ⌛

Restaking points have been crucial in @eigenlayer's growth

Projects can't please everyone with airdrops, because these are always subjective and determined by their core team

Life changing airdrops in crypto are a thing of the past

fuul

9/ If you enjoyed this thread, please give it a like and follow me! I nerd out on web3 growth, mostly on rewards programs

If you are considering building an incentives program for your project, make sure to check out /fuul ⚡️

Top projects such as Hashflow, Vertex, Diva and others use Fuul to scale  growth

Nothing on this post should be considered financial advice, all my knowledge into this program comes from available sources online which I quote below:

https://dune.com/hahahash/eigenlayer
https://defillama.com/protocol/eigenlayer
https://docs.eigenlayer.xyz/
https://www.blog.eigenlayer.xyz/

6/ EigenLayer and Liquid Restaking Protocols took over crypto twitter and the media, generating buzz and excitement around restaking

Few Qs below:

Could have this happened without an incentives program?
I don't think so