Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol EigenLayer reached its liquid restaking capability Tuesday evening, pushing its total payment locked previous $1.4 billion.

EigenLayer increased its restaking capability at some point of December, and since then the sequence of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) and ETH deposited into the protocol’s tidy contracts has increased bigger than fivefold from about $250 million.

Liquid staking tokens bellow the mixed payment of a user’s initial deposit into Ethereum’s staking deposit contract plus amassed passion, and would possibly well even be worn all over many DeFi platforms as collateral.

The restaking platform went dwell in June and enables crypto customers who’re currently staking ETH to restake their LSTs, extending Ethereum’s “cryptoeconomic security to additional functions on the community to plot additional rewards,” in conserving with its documents.

Fragment of why crypto customers be pleased been depositing their LSTs into the new protocol stems from the chance of EigenLayer airdropping tokens to its depositors. EigenLayer has enacted a facets system to measure a user’s contribution to the EigenLayer ecosystem.

Chainlink neighborhood ambassador @ChainLinkGod acknowledged on January 1 on X, beforehand Twitter, that “EigenLayer would possibly well be crypto’s perfect airdrop up to now, particularly whereas you happen to rely the airdrops from Eigen-powered application to restakers.”

Recordsdata from blockchain analytics agency DefiLlama reveals liquid staking is the perfect category at some point of the DeFi ecosystem, with a mixed total payment locked of round $31 billion.

“All LST deposits on the moment are on discontinue,” EigenLayer tweeted on Tuesday, but well-liked that “More restaking opportunities are on the horizon as we advance the Stage 2 Mainnet Start for Operators & [EigenDA].”

UPDATE Jan. 3, 10:13 pm: Included ETH as piece of the cryptoassets deposited into EigenLayer’s tidy contracts.