EigenLayer, a project focusing on re-staking in Ethereum, recently released the whitepaper for its protocol token EIGEN, introducing many novel and complex concepts. This article will guide readers in understanding these new concepts. The article is sourced from the author ChainFeeds and organized and written by PANews.
Table of Contents:
– What is Work Token?
– What is Intersubjective?
– ETH Objective, EIGEN Subjective?
– Can protocol tokens fork?
– Ethereum’s Weak Subjectivity
EigenLayer has just released the whitepaper for its protocol token EIGEN, introducing many novel and complex concepts such as Intersubjective, Work Token, Token Forking, slashing-by-forking, and Intersubjective staking. These terms have quickly become the focus of community discussions.
The initial intention of EigenLayer’s protocol design is to generalize the use of Ethereum nodes, allowing these nodes to execute other business logics to increase revenue and provide additional income for users participating in ETH consensus. However, while increasing the utility of nodes, it also brings risks. Among these risks, in addition to observable objective risks, there are also uncertainties that exist between subjectivity and objectivity. Although this uncertainty cannot be completely guaranteed through cryptography and mathematics, it is based on “social consensus”.
This is what is called “Intersubjective,” which can also be translated as “social consensus.”
From this perspective, because it is “social consensus,” their protocol tokens also need to be forkable, which requires the design of a dual-token isolation model and the logic of initiating forks as supporting measures. It is more like Ethereum implementing a whole set of network logics. It has both (social) consensus and nodes, and it can fork, but it is not a blockchain.
In addition, I also recalled some interesting anecdotes related to Work Token and Weak subjectivity as supplements.
What is Work Token?
Work Tokens have been discussed since around 2018, and the reason they are more widely known is due to Kyle Samani from Multicoin Capital. In simple terms, in the model of Work Tokens, service providers can only obtain the right to perform network work by staking the native tokens of the network.
In other words, nodes not only need to provide tokens but also provide services to receive rewards. Of course, with the popularity of on-chain liquidity and DeFi protocols in recent years, the tokens that nodes need to stake can be provided through third parties, without the nodes needing to use a large amount of their own assets. This has become the current model of EigenLayer: users provide ETH, Liquid Restaking Protocol provides liquidity, node operators provide hardware, and AVS provides business logic.
In 2018 or earlier, the industry has classified tokens into various categories, and the most common ones at that time were: store of value (such as Bitcoin), security tokens, utility tokens, and work tokens.
What is Intersubjective?
First, let’s define two key terms: Objective and Subjective. Errors caused by blockchain and decentralized networks can be classified into the following four types based on their nature:
Objective errors: These errors are based on data and cryptography and can be explicitly verified, such as the execution process of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Intersubjective errors: These errors involve social consensus among groups. When certain behaviors or judgments go beyond this consensus, they are considered Intersubjective errors.
Unobservable errors: These errors are only known to the victims and cannot be observed by others.
Subjective errors: These errors are entirely based on personal experiences and perspectives, resulting in results without consensus.
EigenLayer believes that unobservable errors and subjective errors are difficult to correct, so they propose using ETH to avoid objective errors and using EIGEN to avoid Intersubjective errors.
The concept of Intersubjective can be seen as a state between “objective” and “subjective”. The term is composed of “Inter” (meaning “between” or “mutual,” similar to “interactive” or “internet”) and Subjective. Therefore, Intersubjective refers to a subjective state formed among individuals, a consensus formed through interaction within a society.
If you ask ChatGPT what Intersubjective means, it will give you a difficult-to-understand Chinese translation: “互为主体性” (“mutual subjectivity”).
For example, in the financial market, the statement “1 BTC = 1 USD” is generally not accepted. This type of consensus error can be classified as an Intersubjective error. Therefore, if we want to explain Intersubjective, we can understand it as “social consensus,” which is the common acceptance of certain concepts or facts within a group.
Although there are subtle differences between “social consensus” and Intersubjective in academic and professional discussions, Intersubjective focuses more on describing the sharing process of subjective experiences and knowledge among individuals, while “social consensus” focuses more on the results of joint decision-making and action.
ETH Objective, EIGEN Subjective?
A brief review of the EigenLayer protocol: Users can deposit ETH into the Liquid Restaking Protocol, and the protocol will stake these ETH to operate Ethereum validation nodes. These validation nodes will also perform various intermediary software businesses, such as oracles, cross-chain bridges, and data availability, to provide services to end applications.
For AVS, they can also be divided into two types: objective and Intersubjective. Objective AVS is based on cryptography and mathematics, can be quantified and verified explicitly. In EigenLayer’s design, these AVS can rely on the Restaking ETH as security guarantees. On the other hand, Intersubjective AVS, such as oracles, can only rely on the social consensus among nodes since off-chain data cannot be verified on-chain. Sufficiently recognized data by multiple nodes is considered trustworthy.
In summary, Restaking ETH will serve as the work token for objective AVS in the EigenLayer protocol, while EIGEN will serve as the work token for Intersubjective AVS.
Can protocol tokens fork?
Token forking is also a novel concept. The characteristic of blockchain being forkable usually refers to the open-source code or network (i.e., the chain itself). In theory, ERC-20 tokens are not forkable, at least not with this ability built-in. This is because as smart contracts, they fully depend on the objective attributes of the EVM.
However, EigenLayer believes that the forkability of tokens is a safeguard, even if it is a once-in-a-century event. If the number of malicious attackers in the EigenLayer network exceeds half, ordinary users can fork the tokens in this way, and then all users and AVS can choose the corresponding tokens based on their own situation. This is essentially letting social consensus determine which token is the most legitimate. They also refer to this concept as slashing-by-forking, which originated from an article written by Vitalik Buterin 9 years ago.
To support this forking capability, a lot of logic needs to be added. For example, if the token is forkable, can EIGEN still be used as collateral for lending protocols? Therefore, they designed a dual-token isolation model where EIGEN cannot be forked, but another token called bEIGEN can be forked. They also designed the process of initiating forks and compensation logic.
Ethereum’s Weak Subjectivity
In fact, Ethereum’s PoS consensus has long had a concept called “Weak Subjectivity,” which is also an intermediate concept between “objective” and “subjective.” And only PoS blockchains have the attribute of Weak Subjectivity.
For PoW networks, because the cost of computational power competition is a real cost, the longest chain is the most secure, which can be considered completely “objective.” For PoS networks, the cost of block production is negligible, and the cost of attacks is also low. Therefore, for nodes that have just joined the network, they need to retrieve social information and find this “Weak Subjectivity” to objectively participate in the PoS process. So there are some “subjective” factors before entering the correct network.
However, for nodes that have already entered the correct Ethereum network to participate in consensus, all the consensus processes and EVM execution processes are objective, guaranteed by cryptography and mathematics. For example, the determinism of EVM input and output, and the rules for double-spending that will be slashed, are all clear rules.
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