EigenLayer, the leading Ethereum restaking protocol, has experienced a surge in withdrawal requests after facing widespread disappointment over its planned EIGEN airdrop. According to data from Dune, the platform saw over 4,336 daily withdrawals on April 29, which increased to 6,496 on April 30. In the past three days, EigenLayer has received a total of 12,412 withdrawal requests since the release of its EIGEN token white paper. However, the airdrop excluded several jurisdictions, including the United States, Canada, and certain African and Asian countries.
EigenLayer currently has over 107,000 unique depositors, and the recent withdrawals represent approximately 11.6% of these depositors. While the exact size of the individual withdrawals is unknown, this percentage would reduce EigenLayer’s total value locked (TVL) from $14.8 billion to slightly above $13 billion. It is important to note that the effects of these mass withdrawals will only become visible in the following weeks due to EigenLayer’s seven-day withdrawal processing period.
The exclusion of key economic jurisdictions from the airdrop has caused widespread disappointment and will impact EigenLayer’s TVL, according to Anndy Lian, an intergovernmental blockchain expert and author. Lian believes that the disappointment surrounding the airdrop will lead to a decrease in TVL. Additionally, EigenLayer’s TVL has already fallen by over 4% in the past week. On the other hand, Karak, another restaking protocol on Ethereum, has seen a 20.5% increase in TVL to $439 million, making it the second-largest protocol of its kind, according to DefiLlama.
The rapid growth of Karak has led to speculation that it has a strong possibility of becoming the next EigenLayer, especially after the EIGEN airdrop debacle. In addition to offering more flexible restaking tokens, Karak also introduces technical benefits for users. Lian believes that Karak’s features and recent growth make it an attractive alternative to EigenLayer.
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