EigenLayer, the darling project of the crypto industry, has had its own fair share of tie-ups with controversies. Its hyped-up ‘stakedrop’ turned sour as soon as details regarding the token distribution were revealed.
Users frowned at the non-transferability, the geographical restrictions, and the minimum airdrop amount. The team did try to patch things up by putting users' concerns on a pedestal and addressing them.
Well, that was just the tip of the iceberg. In May, two Ethereum Foundation researchers unveiled their ties with EigenLayer. Dankrad Feist and Justin Drake became advisors to the restaking protocol.
Even though both of them clarified that they were not representing the Ethereum Foundation and had taken up these positions personally, several community members underlined that this association would one way or the other align long-term Ethereum’s development plans with EigenLayer's interests.
Now, a recent investigation brought to light that the employees of Eigen Labs have accepted millions of dollars in payouts from projects linked to its ecosystem. This, in turn, has sparked questions about compromised ethical objectivity.
The report asserted,
“Eigen Labs employees ultimately claimed payouts worth nearly $5 million at peak values — just under $1 million at press time — amid the crypto market's summer slump.”
Eventually, EigenLayer “quietly banned” payouts to their employees in May this year in an attempt to erase the potential conflict of interest tag that could be associated.
When asked about the aforementioned allegations, the team asserted that they provided a list of addresses for all Eigen Labs employees only to the projects interested in airdropping to Eigen Labs.
The Eigen team reportedly “helped” others from the industry by amassing wallet address lists, making introductions, and bestowing them with airdrops. According to the team, this was “very much aligned” with its vision of a coordination engine where projects “help each other, reward each other, and partner” to build an EigenLayer ecosystem that is "greater than the sum of its parts."
Post reverse-engineering the transactions, the investigation brought to light that the insider wallets received the same number of tokens from three respective airdrops — Ether.Fi, Renzo and AltLayer.
According to onchain data,
“Eigen Labs employees claimed a total of 487,928 ETHFI (peak value $3.5 million), 1,733,342 REZ (peak $433,300), and 1,539,563 ALT (peak $1.02 million) between late January and mid-June 2024.”
Specifically, AltLayer diverted 46,512 ALT to every Eigen Labs employee. Ether.Fi and Renzo trod on the same path by distributing 10,490.9 ETHFI and 66,667 REZ per person respectively.
Ether.Fi airdropped tokens to Eigen Labs, as a "thank you.” Mike Silagadze, the CEO of Ether.Fi, asked the Eigen team for a list of its employees for airdrops. They forwarded him a list of 50 wallet addresses — sans Sreeram Kannan’s.
One team, however, revealed that Eigen Labs sent it the list even though it had not asked for it. Specifically, the developer of this project asserted, “Eigen Labs requested that its employees be rewarded with airdrops. The request was difficult to ignore given Eigen Labs' influence.”
In a parallel post on X, the Eigen team defended,
“We want to make clear that we have no knowledge or evidence of any employee at Eigen Labs pressuring any team to unduly benefit the Eigen Labs corporate entity or its employees.”
Meanwhile, AltLayer airdropped tokens as an “appreciation,” while the RestakeX Foundation — which conducted Renzo's airdrop — said, "There was an allocation for ecosystem partners which was not solicited by anyone from EigenLayer."
