EIGEN

EigenCloud (EigenLayer)

DeFi

Ethereum's restaking layer, now rebranded as a verifiable cloud for AI agents, with a token down 96% from its peak.

Speculative pivot v1.1 · as of 2026-10-21 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

EigenLayer created restaking and still secures several billion dollars, but restaked deposits shrank sharply in 2026 and only a handful of services pay real fees. Eigen Labs has repositioned as EigenCloud, selling verifiable compute and AI tooling such as EigenAI and AgentKit. The token has not followed: −77% in a year and −96% from the $5.65 ATH, while monthly unlocks of ~37–40M EIGEN to investors and early contributors run until late 2027. A buyback plan (ELIP-12) exists, but fee revenue is still far below the value of new supply.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$0.2464
+3.2% 24h · +2% 30d · CoinGecko 21 Oct
Market cap
$239.9M
rank #170 · FDV $456.8M, no max supply
24h volume
$29.8M
12.4% of market cap
From ATH
−96%
ATH $5.65, Dec 2024
2026 YTD
−29%
$0.3487 → $0.2464
Restaked TVL
~$4.7B
down from ~$15B early 2026 · single source, 2026

The last 12 months

$0.5$1$1.5Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNov2025-10-27: $1.2037$1.20 peak2026-01-06: $0.4531$0.452026-04-04: $0.1514$0.15 low2026-10-21: $0.2462$0.251Monthly investor unlocks run212-month high at $1.203ELIP-12 buyback proposal4EigenCloud platform push5AgentKit beta6Year low at $0.157Kelp DAO exploit8October unlock ~37M EIGEN9Next monthly unlock10AgentKit: x402 and ERC-8004
TokenomicsMarketGovernanceProductAdoptionUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 22 Oct 2025 to 21 Oct 2026.

Key events
  1. 1
    01 Oct 25 Monthly investor unlocks run. Investors and early contributors receive ~37–40M EIGEN a month, a schedule that runs to late 2027.
  2. 2
    27 Oct 25 12-month high at $1.20. Peak after the autumn rally on EigenCloud and AI-agent news; price fell 37% within a month.
  3. 3
    Dec 25 ELIP-12 buyback proposal. Proposes an Incentives Committee, a 20% fee on subsidised AVS rewards and EigenCloud fees for EIGEN buybacks.
  4. 4
    Feb 26 EigenCloud platform push. Eigen Labs presents EigenCloud as a verifiable cloud for apps and agents, with restaking underneath.
  5. 5
    26 Mar 26 AgentKit beta. Toolkit for AI agents with their own wallets, USDC payments and verifiable compute in TEEs.
  6. 6
    04 Apr 26 Year low at $0.15. Close of $0.1514, −87% from the October high.
  7. 7
    18 Apr 26 Kelp DAO exploit. $292M rsETH bridge hack hits liquid restaking; EigenLayer contracts were not breached, but deposits flowed out afterwards.
  8. 8
    01 Oct 26 October unlock ~37M EIGEN. Monthly tranche worth roughly $9–10M at current prices.
  9. 9
    01 Nov 26 Next monthly unlock. Another ~37–40M EIGEN to investors and early contributors.
  10. 10
    Soon AgentKit: x402 and ERC-8004. Announced next steps: x402 payments, ERC-8004 agent identity, governance templates and a UI; no date given.

How a restaked service is secured and paid on EigenLayer

Staker
Restakes ETH or LST

Deposits staked ETH, stETH or EIGEN into EigenLayer contracts.

Operator
Receives delegation

Node operator gets the stake and opts in to chosen AVSs.

AVS
Service needs security

E.g. EigenDA stores rollup data; EigenCompute runs agent code.

Customer
Pays for the service

Rollup or app pays fees, usually in ETH, stablecoins or AVS tokens.

Rewards
Fees and incentives flow

Operators and stakers share AVS rewards plus newly minted EIGEN.

Slashing
Misbehaviour is punished

Provable faults slash restaked ETH; judgement-based faults slash EIGEN.

Where EIGEN comes in: it is minted at 4% a year as incentives for stakers and operators, and can be staked to cover faults that need social judgement. Customer fees are mostly paid in ETH or other tokens and bypass EIGEN; ELIP-12 would route a share of fees into EIGEN buybacks, which is the core value-accrual question.

Usage and adoption

USD per year, at today's EIGEN price ($0.246)
Protocol fees
~$12M
Emissions (4% inflation)
~$16M
Investor and contributor unlocks
~$112M

Fees: ~$12.4M annualised (DefiLlama dashboard estimate, 2026). Emissions: ~67M EIGEN a year (1.29M a week, Eigen Foundation docs). Unlocks: ~38M EIGEN a month (Sep and Oct 2026 tranches, 36.8M to 39.5M). Token amounts valued at today's price, so the USD figures move with EIGEN. Fees are not burned and no buyback is confirmed live, so for now none of the fee value reaches EIGEN directly.

  • medium signal
    Protocol fees
    ~$12M / yr

    DefiLlama estimate, 2026; only 3 AVSs pay meaningful fees (BlockEden, Apr 2026). Paid usage is small.

  • medium signal
    Restaked TVL
    ~$4.7B

    Single undated 2026 source; down from ~$15B early 2026. Native ETH restaked ~643k ETH on 30 Sep (Baltex).

  • weak signal
    EigenAI inference
    2B+ tokens

    Served during mainnet alpha; secondary source, unverified. Shows trials, not revenue.

  • weak signal
    Funding
    ~$234.5M

    Total raised by Eigen Labs incl. $70M a16z token buy (Sacra). Runway, not adoption.

Restaking proved there is demand for borrowed security, but in 2026 that demand shrank and most rewards are still paid by EIGEN emissions. The scoreboard to watch is EigenCloud fee revenue against monthly unlocks and emissions, and whether ELIP-12 buybacks start.

Project

What it is
A restaking protocol on Ethereum: stakers re-use staked ETH (or EIGEN) to secure extra services called AVSs, such as the EigenDA data layer, and accept slashing risk for extra rewards. Since 2025 Eigen Labs sells it as EigenCloud, a verifiable cloud with EigenDA, EigenCompute and EigenAI on top.
Team
Eigen Labs, founded 2021 and led by CEO Sreeram Kannan (ex-University of Washington professor); the Eigen Foundation manages the token. Raised ~$234.5M including a $70M a16z token purchase (Jun 2025); cut 25% of staff in Jul 2025 to focus on EigenCloud.
Technology
Restaking plus slashing (live since 2025) lets new services rent Ethereum's economic security. EigenCompute runs off-chain agent code in trusted execution environments (TEEs) with on-chain proofs of what ran; EigenAI offers verifiable LLM inference; AgentKit (beta, Mar 2026) bundles wallets, USDC payments and inference for AI agents.
Traction
Restaked TVL reported near ~$15B early in 2026 but ~$4.7B later in the year after the April Kelp DAO exploit and liquid-restaking withdrawals (figures conflict). An April 2026 review found only 3 AVSs generating real fees; protocol fees run around ~$12M a year (DefiLlama estimate).
Competitors
Symbiotic and Karak in restaking; Babylon for Bitcoin staking; Phala and Oasis for TEE-based verifiable compute; Celestia and Avail for data availability.
Key risks
Restaking demand may not come back; most AVS rewards are subsidised by EIGEN emissions; value accrual to EIGEN depends on a buyback plan whose status is unconfirmed; heavy investor unlocks; the AI pivot competes with much larger cloud providers.
Roadmap
AgentKit roadmap: more social integrations, governance templates, a UI and support for x402 payments and ERC-8004 agent identity. ELIP-12 Incentives Committee to steer emissions toward fee-paying AVSs and route EigenCloud fees to EIGEN buybacks; no firm dates published.

Token performance

1-year return (22 Oct 2025 → 21 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
EIGEN
-77%
BTC
-22%
ETH
-35%

EIGEN only began trading on 1 Oct 2024, so there is no 3-year figure; since its first trading days near ~$4 it is down about −94%, while over 3 years BTC is ~+179% (from ~$29.7k) and ETH ~+53% (from ~$1.6k). Launch price and 3-year figures are manual, the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.15 low (4 Apr) to $0.45 high (6 Jan), daily closes; now $0.25
12-month drawdown
−87%, from $1.20 (27 Oct 2025) to $0.15 (4 Apr 2026); +63% off the low since
Liquidity
$29.8M traded in 24h, 12.4% of market cap; rank #170
Relative strength
−77% in a year vs BTC −22% and ETH −35%; YTD −29%. Firmer since mid-Sep, with closes mostly between $0.22 and $0.28
ATH check ATH check passed, narrowly. The $5.65 ATH (16 Dec 2024) came 76 days after trading began, inside the 90-day window, but price stayed within 50% of it into early 2025 (manual check), so it counts as a real cycle high rather than a launch spike.

Tokenomics

Supply
~1.85B EIGEN total, ~974M circulating (53%); no max supply. FDV $457M vs market cap $240M.
Inflation
Fixed 4% a year of the initial ~1.67B supply, about 1.29M EIGEN a week (~67M a year), paid as programmatic incentives to restakers and operators.
Unlocks
Investors and early contributors unlock monthly, ~37–40M EIGEN each (Sep 2026 tranche 36.8M or 39.5M depending on source), until about Sep–Oct 2027.
Utility
Staking to secure AVSs and EigenCloud services, including faults that need social judgment (EIGEN can fork to slash), and governance signalling. AVS rewards and app fees can be paid in any token.
Concentration
Investors and early contributors together hold more than half of the initial supply; the remaining locked tokens are the main source of new float.
Sinks
None active that is confirmed. ELIP-12 (Dec 2025) proposes a 20% fee on EIGEN-subsidised AVS rewards and EigenCloud service fees for EIGEN buybacks.

Bull case

EigenCloud's AI products (EigenAI, EigenCompute, AgentKit) turn into paid usage and ELIP-12 buybacks start absorbing real supply; restaked TVL stabilises above ~$4B. Price holds the $0.22 base and retakes the $0.45 January high.

Bear case

Unlocks of ~37–40M EIGEN a month keep outpacing ~$1M a month of fees, and restaking keeps bleeding deposits to safer yields. Price loses $0.22 and revisits the $0.15 April low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • ELIP-12 status: is the buyback contract live, and how much EIGEN does it buy
  • Restaked TVL on DefiLlama and native ETH restaked
  • EigenCloud fee revenue (EigenDA, EigenAI, EigenCompute) vs ~$16M a year of emissions
  • Monthly unlocks (~37–40M EIGEN) and the $0.22 support / $0.45 resistance

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

EIGEN against EUR · USD

24h $146.0k · ±2% depth $172.4k

OKXlisted

EIGEN against EUR · USDT · USDC · TRY

24h $929.8k · ±2% depth $131.9k

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceEIGEN/USDT$3.27M$228.1k
BybitEIGEN/USDT$1.01M$272.3k
OKXEIGEN/USDT$810.9k$136.8k
CoinbaseEIGEN/USD$543.0k$420.7k
BitvavoEIGEN/EUR$234.1k$102.0k

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
Uniswap V3CLEIGEN/WETH · Ethereum$39.2k$158.1k
CurveEIGEN/WETH · Ethereum$23.2k$10.8k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all EIGEN volume: 0.2%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

Where to follow

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