Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer is only hours away from unlocking its native token, EIGEN, and derivative markets hint at a bullish debut, according to trading data from decentralized perpetual exchanges.
EigenLayer’s native token has been nontransferable since launching in May, but EIGEN-linked perpetual futures — or “perps” — indicate a spot price of approximately $4 per token, according to data from exchanges Aevo and Hyperliquid.
“Most likely scenario is airdrop farmers dumping weighs on the price for a bit, but I think there will be a lot of interest in picking up cheap EIGEN for the rest of the cycle,” Aylo, pseudonymous founder of Alpha Please, said in a Sept. 30 post on the X platform.
EIGEN perps steadily climbed in September. Source: Aevo
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The token is scheduled to unlock at 5:00 am UTC on Oct. 1. It will start trading on centralized exchanges (CEXs), including Binance and Bitfinex, shortly after.
With a total supply of 1.67 billion, EIGEN’s fully diluted value (FDV) is on track to exceed $6.7 billion. Approximately 200 million EIGEN tokens are in circulation.
The price of EIGEN perps on Aevo and Hyperliquid has steadily climbed since early September, nearly doubling from lows of around $2 per token. Aevo and Hyperliquid’s 24-hour trading volume adds up to around $1 million, possibly insufficient to fully reflect market dynamics.
The perps market squares with EIGEN’s price in informal over-the-counter (OTC) trades, which purportedly rose from around $2 in August to roughly $3.50 as recently as Sept. 24, a person familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph. These comments are consistent with information from EigenLayer’s community forums.
Following EigenLayer’s May airdrop, early OTC trades initially priced EIGEN as high as $10 per token, the person said.
EigenLayer’s TVL. Source: DefiLlama
Tokenholders stand to benefit as more protocols start paying EigenLayer’s restakers, who deposit tokens — including EIGEN — as collateral to secure other networks, or “actively validated services” (AVS), in EigenLayer’s parlance.
As of Sept. 30, EigenLayer commanded nearly $12 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to DefiLlama.
In August, EigenDA, EigenLayer’s affiliated AVS, started paying restakers in Ether (ETH) and EIGEN rewards. Other AVS, including Arpa Network, are following suit.
“The last ecosystem map I saw had 60+ AVS building on top of Eigenlayer,” Aylo said, adding:
“I think the ‘AWS for decentralized services’ will command a higher valuation than the pre-market is giving it currently.”
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