a16z: Why did we invest in EigenLayer? ｜Unleash 100 times the innovation speed of EthereumTo fully understand the full picture of EigenLayer, you first need to zoom in: we can start with Bitcoin.Bitcoin was the first example of an entire blockchain being built for a single application, which was ostensibly payments and evolved into digital gold, a store of value.The genius of Ethereum is that it breaks away from the single-application Bitcoin approach by separating consensus from the application logic built on top of it, enabling developers to write their own applications in the form of smart contracts, taking advantage of the security of the blockchain. performance and computing resources.This change frees up huge design space for open innovation, allowing people to build decentralized applications without having to launch their own blockchain.However, Ethereum's programmability is not without limitations, and it still places a lot of requirements on what developers can and cannot do.In an ideal world, developers should have almost complete freedom without having to build their own blockchain network from scratch.Instead, you will be able to build on Ethereum, the most secure programmable blockchain with a decentralized and secure validator set.EigenLayer is a set of smart contracts on Ethereum that creates a two-sided market for raw cryptoeconomic security: on the demand side, it allows creators of custom decentralized services to write code that effectively extends Ethereum’s functionality; on the supply side On the other hand, validators participating in the Ethereum consensus can choose to run decentralized services by heavily staking ETH.In summary, EigenLayer is a decentralized and market-based mechanism for extending the functionality of Ethereum.We believe that by further decoupling cryptoeconomic security from the EVM, EigenLayer has the potential to unleash 100x faster innovations in technologies such as consensus mechanisms, new virtual machines, decentralized oracles, cross-chain bridges, and networks with dedicated hardware. Just like Ethereum, it has unleashed 100 times faster innovation at the application logic level by introducing smart contracts.

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