Consensys decentralized Infura launches as EigenLayer AVS

Consensys Ethereum validator node provider Infura says it’s made significant progress in its Decentralized Infrastructure Network (DIN), announcing plans to launch as an Actively Validated Service (AVS) on Ethereum restaking platform EigenLayer.

“By leaning on Ethereum’s economic security through EigenLayer, we continue to build on DIN’s steady progress creating a Web3 permissionless marketplace for infrastructure services,” said head of product for Infura DIN, Tom Hay, in an announcement made at Devcon 2024 in Bangkok on Nov. 14.

DIN is a decentralized Web3 API marketplace, or decentralized “app store” for blockchain infrastructure, that provides a new way for developers to connect to Ethereum and other leading blockchains. It currently operates across multiple networks including Blast, Mantle, Starknet, ZKsync, BNB Smart Chain, and Scroll.

Launching DIN as an AVS through EigenLayer has a number of benefits, including a reduction in development costs, improved accessibility and reliability of Web3 services, a cooperative environment among providers, and the simplification of launching new services across Web3 gateways. 

Sreeram Kannan, founder of EigenLayer, explained that building DIN as an EigenLayer AVS “enables permissionless infrastructure provision, thus scaling the marketplace while simultaneously increasing reliability and reducing costs.”

DIN ecosystem actor interactions. Source: DIN Litepaper

An Actively Validated Service (AVS) on EigenLayer is a decentralized service built on Ethereum that provides custom validation mechanisms for offchain operations. EigenLayer is an Ethereum restaking protocol that enables additional rewards for staked Ether (ETH). 

The primary goal of the deployment is to create a more accessible, reliable, and efficient decentralized infrastructure for Web3 development while leveraging Ethereum’s economic security.

It also leverages EigenLayer restaking as an onboarding mechanism with staking and slashing protection without the need for projects to launch tokens prematurely.

Related: EigenLayer bolsters restaking with Bitcoin yield, P2P.org payouts

EigenLayer growth has exploded in 2024 with the total value locked on the restaking protocol surging 900% since the beginning of the year to $13.4 billion, according to DefiLlama. However, TVL has declined since it peaked at $20 billion in early June, only seeing a recent uptick as ETH prices increased over the past week or so.

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