Following the appointment of Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, as an advisor to EigenLayer, Dankrad Feist, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, has also announced today that he will be serving as an advisor to EigenLayer. He will receive a significant amount of token rewards, but he emphasizes that he will continue to speak out boldly and that there are significant risks associated with staking, but there are also benefits.
Amidst recent discussions in the cryptocurrency community, regarding whether core developers or researchers at the Ethereum Foundation can accept high rewards from Ethereum ecosystem projects and become advisors, Cobie, a prominent cryptocurrency Key Opinion Leader (KOL), has raised concerns that members of the Ethereum Foundation who hold dual positions may face conflicts of interest, especially if the projects are in conflict with Ethereum’s interests, either now or in the future.
However, at this time, Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, who has always been critical of EigenLayer, announced on the 19th that he will be serving as an advisor to the Eigen Foundation and disclosed that the advisory service will allow him to receive millions of dollars’ worth of EIGEN tokens over a three-year period, which is likely to exceed the total value of his cryptocurrency assets (mainly ETH).
But Justin Drake stated that he will use all advisory earnings for investment or donations to Ethereum ecosystem projects. If EigenLayer moves in a direction that is detrimental to Ethereum, he will terminate his advisory position. As for whether EigenLayer is systematically acquiring members of the Ethereum Foundation, he stated:
Following Justin Drake, Dankrad Feist, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, announced today that he has also decided to serve as an advisor to EigenLayer. Similar to Justin Drake, he is joining as an individual and does not represent the Ethereum Foundation. He focuses on risks and decentralization.
Dankrad Feist stated that he did indeed receive a significant amount of tokens from EigenLayer, but he does not believe that this will change or affect his stance on core protocol development. If EigenLayer is developed by highly trustworthy individuals, it will bring significant benefits to Ethereum. He believes that the current leaders intend to do so. If he believes the situation is no longer the same, he will not hesitate to speak out or resign.
Discussing the risks and benefits of EigenLayer, despite serving as an advisor, Dankrad Feist mentioned that there are significant risks associated with staking, primarily due to the following:
– Delegation agency problem: Operators may have different motivations from funders, resulting in different incentives than originally designed in the protocol.
– Operating staking services may burden stakers and lead to centralization.
– The staking infrastructure may be used to launch attacks on the Ethereum protocol, such as bribery attacks.
– EigenLayer may give rise to a dystopia where staking services with dangerous designs dominate, and stakers will have to choose to join because these services provide most of the staking rewards.
Dankrad Feist stated that avoiding the occurrence of the second and third risks is the main reason for his decision to become an advisor. However, when staking is implemented properly, it can bring significant benefits to Ethereum:
– Staking can bring benefits to individual stakers by providing liquidity staking tokens (LST) and making them more competitive compared to the current situation.
– Ideally, Ethereum should already have a large data layer, but in reality, it is severely limited, and some projects cannot commit to becoming a rollup by publishing data to Ethereum. EigenLayer will provide a good temporary solution for these projects.
– EigenLayer can also help achieve other things, such as block pre-commitments.
Related Reports
EigenLayer criticized for insufficient airdrops: Will they distribute an additional 100 $EIGEN tokens to over 280,000 users, each receiving an extra 1,000 euros?
Understanding the terminology in the EigenLayer whitepaper correctly: A completely new concept.
EigenLayer airdrop is here! The off-exchange price of $EIGEN surges above 12 euros, rules for claiming clarified. Why did Pendle experience a significant setback?