Latest news with #EigenLayer
Business Insider
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Puffer Upgrades UniFi Preconf AVS to Deliver Sub-10ms Execution With Restaked Security
Puffer Finance, a protocol launchpad specialising in Ethereum‑aligned rollups, has released an upgraded version of its Preconfirmation AVS (Preconf AVS) functionality. The new version enables execution guarantees with sub‑10 millisecond latency for OP‑based rollups, underpinned by over 3 million ETH in restaked security. Puffer Finance supports scalable protocol deployment by combining unified restaking, rollup‑based infrastructure, and modular composability. With this upgrade, its UniFi Preconf AVS delivers a production‑ready mechanism for Ethereum‑native transactions that are executed within sub‑10 ms guarantees at a fixed price, with slashing collateral and rollup revenue-sharing incentives supporting economic security. By design, rollups inherit Ethereum's approximate 12‑second block times, which limits performance for latency‑sensitive applications. Puffer's upgraded Preconf AVS addresses this by offering execution guarantees that ensure exact transaction outcomes at the time of transaction, rather than relying on later settlement prices. The enforcement mechanism leverages EigenLayer's restaked ETH model. Validators and gateway operators back their sequencing commitments with slashing risk to mitigate potential liveness failures, toxic MEV exposure, or protocol-safety faults. The deployment currently secures in excess of 3 million ETH in restaked assets, providing significant economic depth for all UniFi‑integrated rollups. Key Features of the Upgrade Delegated Gateway Rights: Validators delegate block proposer responsibilities to specialized gateways focused on sequencing. Lookahead Scheduling: Gateways receive advance visibility into upcoming L1 slots for precise coordination. Refund Mechanisms: Users are refunded if Preconf execution fails. Three‑Phase Rollout: Phase 1: Early gateway access with validator delegation, no slashing—missed events forfeit rewards. First implementation supports sub‑100 ms confirmations via the Gattaca frags‑based gateway. Phase 2: Expanded gateway participation and implementation of lookahead scheduling. Incentive structures modular and more decentralized. Phase 3: Introduction of slashing for liveness or MEV risks (ranging from ~1 ETH to 1,000 ETH), integration with Ethereum's Universal Registry Contract, post-slash challenge/fraud‑proof periods, and mechanisms to redistribute or reclaim slashed collateral. Additionally, a rewards distribution system has been introduced. Rather than routing all gains from preconfirmations to L1 proposers, a dynamic revenue-sharing model allocates incentives among validators, gateway operators, and rollup operators. Slashed funds are either refunded to affected users or retained within the Preconf rewards pool, aligning rollup operator interests with Ethereum's decentralization goals without fragmenting liquidity. About Puffer Finance Puffer FinanceFocuses on Ethereum infrastructure innovation through rollup-based solutions supported by liquid restaking and pre-confirmation (AVS) technologies. Core offerings include Puffer UniFi and UniFi AVS, built in partnership with EigenLayer. The PUFFER token is listed on major exchanges including Upbit, Bithumb, Bybit, Kraken, and Bitget. For further details, readers may visit Contact Puffer
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Intelligently optimizing validator performance across chains
Intelligently optimizing validator performance across chains originally appeared on TheStreet. TL;DR: Validator performance is now critical to earning and retaining stakeholder support. Downtime or missed blocks directly affect rewards and reputation. NodeOps offers a validator intelligence platform with real-time monitoring, automated failover, and slashing protection across multiple chains. NodeOps Staking hub helps operators scale infrastructure, publish transparent performance metrics, and analyze delegation trends. NodeOps launched its native token, $NODE, on June 30, 2025. This launch followed significant progress and clear product market fit, evidenced by over $3.7M in accumulated revenue and more than 706K verified users across all product lines Staking no longer guarantees passive income. As competition grows, driven by institutional validators, liquid staking protocols, and restaking ecosystems, validator performance has become a decisive factor. Delegators track metrics: missed blocks, uptime history, and slashing records. Each lapse costs yield. Each penalty erodes trust. New systems like EigenLayer and modular networks such as Celestia introduce additional operational demands. Validators now secure multiple environments, each with its own configuration, penalty system, and performance expectations. The role has shifted from running a node to managing distributed infrastructure under strict constraints. What was once background infrastructure now defines validator competitiveness. That shift favors operators who manage with precision. Validators operate in a fragmented tooling stack, often relying on Horcrux for key management, Prometheus exporters for metrics, Telegram bots for alerts, and Grafana for dashboards. Each chain introduces its own quirks, scripts, edge cases, and maintenance burdens. For seasoned teams, this becomes a cycle of patchwork fixes. For newer operators, it's a steep and costly learning curve. One RPC lag or signing failure can trigger slashing and loss of stake. Managing across networks compounds the risk: Cosmos validators struggle with height lag, Ethereum with missed attestations during gas spikes, and Avalanche with subnet uptime rules. Without unified visibility or automated response systems, issues are often caught only after damage is done. This patchwork model doesn't scale, and increasingly, it doesn't protect. NodeOps as an Infrastructure Intelligence Layer NodeOps addresses this operational gap by introducing a full-stack validator intelligence layer. It consolidates telemetry, alerting logic, delegation analytics, and automated failover workflows into a single control plane, built for multi-chain infrastructure. Operators onboard through lightweight agents or containerized modules that stream real-time metrics into a unified dashboard. This includes uptime patterns, RPC latency, signing failures, peer count drift, and block proposal data. Rather than surface static charts, NodeOps analyzes these inputs for anomalies. When deviations occur, such as height lag on Cosmos or RPC congestion on Ethereum, the platform flags the issue and offers recommended actions. Thresholds are customizable per network. An operator might trigger a failover if latency exceeds 200ms or signing lag crosses critical levels. This turns performance monitoring into a proactive system, one that reacts before revenue or reputation is impacted. How It Works: Real-Time Data, Smart Alerts, and Automated Resilience NodeOps continuously ingests telemetry from validators, benchmarking them against network-specific performance thresholds. On Cosmos, it tracks missed pre-commits and block height gaps. On Ethereum, it analyzes attestation timing, proposer accuracy, and inclusion delay. Avalanche and Celestia add subnet-specific metrics like finality lag and proposer liveness. When issues like proposal failures, RPC congestion, or peer drops arise, NodeOps immediately flags anomalies and proactively triggers automated responses such as DNS redirection, validator pause, or key rotation to prevent slashing. For example, during a high-load period on Evmos, NodeOps detected RPC latency nearing a slashable threshold. Before penalties occurred, the system triggered failover to a secondary node, adjusted the sync source, and restored validator uptime without incident. The entire response was logged and exported to the validator's delegation partners for transparency. This level of operational automation transforms validator infrastructure from reactive to resilient, minimizing downtime, preserving rewards, and maintaining delegator trust. Delegation Intelligence: Transparency That Builds Trust NodeOps doesn't just reduce downtime, it gives validators tools to grow and defend their stake. Delegators increasingly use performance dashboards, commission history, and slashing records to decide where to allocate capital. NodeOps enables validators to publish these metrics in real time, offering transparency that builds confidence. The platform also tracks delegation movement over time. Operators can correlate stake inflows and outflows with changes in performance, commission strategy, or community activity. If a validator raises commission after a period of 100% uptime, NodeOps can show whether delegators stayed or left, turning validator operations into a measurable business feedback loop. Liquid staking protocols benefit as well. When selecting validator sets, many LSTs now require automated performance verification. NodeOps exposes APIs that allow these teams to audit validator health continuously, without relying on unverifiable claims or manual reporting. Visibility, not just uptime, is becoming a key differentiator in staking. NodeOps gives validators both. Why Revenue Visibility Matters More Than Ever DePINs are at risk of hyperinflationary outcomes when their tokenomics strategy involves building the supply side through early emissions. NodeOps delayed its token launch to enable revenue to build ahead of listing. Once the wider market conditions favor a token launch, the historic revenue will be brought onchain, directly linking the revenue to the token price. Furthermore, the emission schedule follows optimal control theory, meaning that emissions are correlated with onchain revenue and capped at a daily limit to protect against hyperinflation and encourage early price discovery that reflects the Network's utility. The initial emissions apply a conservative 0.2 burn-to-mint ratio, 5 times tighter than the early DePIN models. According to Messari's dedicated report on NodeOps, the network generated $3.7M in annualized revenue before any token incentives were introduced, placing it among the strongest revenue-producing DePIN projects ahead of its token launch. Having experienced how poor the observability over emerging protocols is, NodeOps took an early stance to provide transparency over its supply, demand, and product revenue metrics with a public Dune dashboard. Its advantage is scope. Legacy tools like Horcrux focus on threshold signing or single-chain telemetry. NodeOps, by contrast, supports slashing protection, cross-chain observability, and delegation analytics, all through a single control plane. The platform has also expanded beyond validator ops. It's evolving into a DePIN orchestration layer, positioning itself within the emerging decentralized compute stack. Staking Hub, which supports networks like Hyperliquid and Beam, along with incentive programs like 'Stakedrop,' is designed to increase engagement while reinforcing network decentralization. In a performance-first staking economy, tools that provide transparency, automation, and proof of execution are no longer optional. They're how validators stay relevant. The Team behind NodeOps NodeOps is led by Naman Kabra, Co-Founder and CEO, who brings a hybrid background in technical engineering and protocol-level business development. He began his career as a blockchain engineer at Bosch Engineering and later contributed to staking-focused projects including Persistence, AssetMantle, and Metasky. His experience spans validator onboarding, ecosystem growth, and infrastructure strategy across multiple Web3 protocols. Pratik Balar, Co-Founder and Tech Lead, drives the technical architecture behind NodeOps' decentralized validator infrastructure. Before NodeOps, he held infrastructure and DevSecOps roles at Shardeum, AsGuard, and AssetMantle, where he specialized in Cosmos validator operations, multi-cloud deployments, and automated security pipelines. His expertise includes Kubernetes, Terraform, and large-scale performance monitoring across modular networks. The frontline team is distributed across Asia, America, the UK, and Europe and has deep experience in Web3. Conclusion: The Alpha Is in the Ops The role of the validator has shifted. It's no longer about staying online; it's about earning trust through consistent execution. With growing complexity across restaking, liquid staking, and modular chains, operators must now treat performance as infrastructure risk. NodeOps gives them the system-level tools to do that: real-time alerting, network-specific automation, and telemetry that aligns with how delegators evaluate performance. Staking no longer rewards presence. It rewards precision. The validators who operate with that mindset are the ones scaling across ecosystems and retaining delegation. For a deeper look into how NodeOps is used in production, including validator case studies, automation workflows, and implementation guides, explore their technical documentation and resource hub. Intelligently optimizing validator performance across chains first appeared on TheStreet on Aug 5, 2025 This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Aug 5, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Eigen Labs Axes 25% of Staff to Focus on Building EigenCloud
Eigen Labs cut its workforce by 25%, losing 29 roles, as CEO Sreeram Kannan said he restructured the company to focus on developing EigenCloud, what he called a 'verifiable' alternative to existing, opaque cloud services. The Seattle-based startup said the dismissals were not a cash-crunch response. The comany is backed by $220 million in venture funding, including a $100 million Series B round led by a16z in February that gave it a $1 billion valuation. "As difficult as these changes are, they sharpen our focus as a company and ensure our teams are structured to sustainably pursue a single, ambitious goal: to build the world's first verifiable cloud platform," Kannan said in a post on X. "We move forward with a tighter strategy, renewed energy, and a team laser-focused on our mission." EigenLayer, the restaking protocol that underpins the project, and its data-availability sibling EigenDA will remain online as part of EigenCloud, Kannan added in separate post. Employees leaving company will receive three months of pay, accelerated token vesting, continued health coverage, and help finding new jobs, he said. He also invited other crypto firms to recruit the departing staff, signaling a wish to keep talent inside the ecosystem. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
a16z Bets Big on EigenLayer Again With $70M Token Buy to Back ‘EigenCloud' Launch
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has invested an additional $70 million in EigenLayer, Ethereum's largest restaking protocol, to support the launch of EigenCloud, a new platform offering 'verifiability-as-a-service' for developers, the companies said on Tuesday. The investment follows a16z's $100 million Series B in Eigen Labs in February 2024, and underscores its commitment to the project through its Crypto Fund IV. EigenLayer currently secures over $12 billion in restaked assets. EigenCloud allows developers to build trustless, verifiable applications that operate off-chain while anchoring trust and payments on the Ethereum blockchain. Companies like Securitize will use EigenCloud to verify asset pricing data for BlackRock's $2 billion BUIDL fund. The platform introduces new services, EigenVerify for dispute resolution and EigenCompute for offchain execution, alongside existing AVSs like EigenDA for data, the companies said. By transforming verifiability into a programmable cloud primitive, EigenCloud is targeting sectors like AI, media, betting markets, and enterprise software, as it aims to unlock a new wave of crypto-native and Web2-integrated applications. 'EigenCloud will enable the next generation of disruptive, mass-market crypto apps, closing the gap between what developers want to build onchain and what blockchains allow them to build,' said Sreeram Kannan, CEO of Eigen Labs, in the release. The alpha rollout includes performance upgrades, dispute tooling, and a developer roadmap for phased access.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Symbiotic Launches 'Relay' to Bring Secure Staking Across Chains
Symbiotic, a universal staking protocol and EigenLayer rival, has launched Relay, a software development kit (SDK) that allows protocols to stake assets on Ethereum and verify that stake across any blockchain. Staking is a system for securing blockchains in exchange for rewards. In staking systems, so-called validators commit callateral — called "stake" — for a role in processing transactions. "Restaking" protocols like Symbiotic let users reuse stake across multiple blockchains at once, offering investors the opportunity to earn extra yield. Relay is, in essence, a generalized version of Symbiotic's restaking tech — a toolkit that can bring Symbiotic-style restaking to virtually any crypto ecosystem. According to the Symbiotic team, the tech lets developers build verifiable, secure coordination layers for decentralized applications (dApps) across multiple chains. Under the hood, the SDK plugs developers into the Symbiotic network. From there, developers may configure networks to use stake on one blockchain to verify activity on another. 'This makes it easy to build bridges, oracles, rollups, or risk protocols that are secured by real stake and verifiable anywhere their users are, without having to bootstrap a validator set, trust a multisig, or sacrifice decentralization,' the team wrote in a press release. 'For users, this means multichain applications which were previously bespoke designs, fragmented, or complex, can now be easily built with verifiable security from day one.' The rollout of Relay was a central part of Symbiotic's recent $29 million Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital. The round included participation from Coinbase Ventures and a cohort of over 100 angel investors. 'Until now, building a secure multichain protocol meant choosing between trusted relayers or expensive, bespoke infrastructure,' said Algys Ievlev, co-founder of Symbiotic. 'Relay solves that. It gives builders a way to use real stake to verify real outcomes across chains without making tradeoffs on cost, security, or developer experience. We believe this will become the default way protocols coordinate across chains.' Read more: Pantera Leads $29M Funding for EigenLayer Rival Symbiotic to Expand Staking Play Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
