EigenLayer's Double Launch: 4x Rewards and Verifiable AI Infrastructure
At a Glance:
- Network rewards increased from 5% to 20%+ NRR — a 4x jump in returns for $EIGEN restakers
- EigenAI and EigenCompute launched on mainnet alpha, introducing verifiable AI infrastructure to solve enterprise trust gaps
- Protocol inflation adjusted from 4% to 8% to fund the higher reward structure
- P2P.org reduced commission from 10% to 5% through end of 2025 for all $EIGEN restakers
EigenLayer made two major announcements this week that fundamentally shift the restaking landscape: a 4x increase in network rewards and the mainnet alpha launch of the first revenue-generating applications built on restaking infrastructure.
Here's what changed, why it matters for institutional allocators, and how the pieces connect.
The Economics: From 5% to 20%+ NRR
Programmatic Incentives v2 is now live, raising the Network Reward Rate (NRR) from 5% to over 20% annually for $EIGEN restakers.
What actually changed
Base rewards increased 4x. The 20% NRR is the new baseline, not a temporary promotion.
Inflation rate doubled. Total $EIGEN issuance increased from 4% to 8% annually, directly funding the higher rewards. An additional 1% goes toward Ecosystem Growth initiatives.
Incentive structure realigned. The new model rewards long-term restakers who provide consistent security to Actively Validated Services (AVS), rather than optimizing purely for TVL growth.
Why this matters: At 5% NRR, restaking competed with traditional Ethereum staking (3-4% NRR) while adding operational complexity. At 20%+, it becomes one of the highest risk-adjusted yields in crypto infrastructure — a 16-17 percentage point premium that justifies the additional overhead for institutional treasuries.
The Infrastructure: What Gets Secured
The 4x rewards increase raises an important question: what are restakers actually securing?
EigenCloud's mainnet alpha launch provides the answer: EigenAI and EigenCompute — the first real-world services that demonstrate restaking economics in practice.
EigenAI: Verifiable LLM Inference
Enterprise AI deployment faces a fundamental trust gap. When you query an LLM through cloud providers, you're trusting the model hasn't been tampered with, the response came from the claimed model, and results haven't been altered.
For regulated institutions and compliance-heavy industries, this opacity is a blocker.
What EigenAI does: Provides an API for LLM inference where every input, output, and model version is cryptographically guaranteed. Prompts, responses, and models remain provably unchanged, with complete audit trails for all interactions.
Why enterprises care: Deterministic, reproducible AI outputs with full auditability. If you need to prove to regulators exactly what your AI system processed and returned, EigenAI provides cryptographic proof.
OpenAI-compatible API: Developers can integrate verifiable inference into existing systems with minimal code changes.
Use cases:
- Financial institutions running AI-powered risk models
- Healthcare applications requiring audit trails for diagnostic AI
- Legal tech where AI-assisted research needs to be defensible
- Any regulated industry where AI decisions require proof of execution
EigenCompute: Verifiable Off-Chain Computation
What it does: Executes complex computational tasks off-chain with on-chain-level trust guarantees.
How it works: Current alpha leverages Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) — hardware-based secure enclaves that prove code executed correctly. Future releases will add cryptoeconomic guarantees and zero-knowledge proofs.
Why this matters: Many blockchain applications need heavy computation that's too expensive or slow to run on-chain. EigenCompute provides a verified alternative — execute off-chain, prove on-chain.
Practical applications:
- Complex financial modeling for DeFi protocols
- AI model training and inference requiring verification
- Data processing pipelines where results need on-chain confirmation
- Any computation where proving correct execution matters more than running everything on-chain
How the Pieces Connect: Dual Revenue Model
EigenAI and EigenCompute represent the economic model of restaking playing out in practice.
When enterprises use these services, they pay fees. Those fees flow to:
- The AVS operators who validate the services
- The restakers who provide economic security to those operators
This creates a dual-revenue model for restakers:
- Base protocol rewards (the 20%+ NRR from Programmatic Incentives v2)
- Service fee revenue from actual usage of EigenAI and EigenCompute
As these services gain enterprise adoption, early restakers who secured them capture both yield streams. This is why the 4x rewards increase and the EigenCloud launch matter together — higher protocol rewards plus revenue-generating applications that those rewards secure.
P2P.org: 5% Commission Through 2025
To align with EigenLayer's new incentive structure, P2P.org has reduced commission from 10% to 5% through the end of 2025 for all $EIGEN restakers.
What you get:
- Zero slashing events across 7 years of validator operations on 40+ networks
- Professional AVS management — we handle all technical implementation, including EigenAI and EigenCompute validation
- 99.9% uptime with enterprise SLAs
- Dedicated institutional support for compliance and custom reporting
- 5% commission applies to all yields — both base protocol rewards and AVS fee revenue
*Important:** The 5% commission rate applies specifically to our dedicated EIGEN Restaking Operator. P2P.org operates multiple EigenLayer validators — make sure you're delegating to the correct operator address to receive the promotional rate.
Our AVS selection process evaluates:
- Security architecture and audit history
- Economic sustainability and revenue potential
- Technical requirements relative to our infrastructure
- Risk/reward profiles considering slashing conditions
Both EigenAI and EigenCompute met our criteria for institutional-grade AVS participation.
Why Early Positioning Matters
The combination of 4x rewards and revenue-generating applications creates a compelling window for institutional restakers.
Higher base rewards: 20%+ NRR changes the risk/reward calculation versus traditional staking and DeFi alternatives.
Fee revenue upside: As EigenAI and EigenCompute move from alpha to production and gain enterprise adoption, fee revenue flows to validators and restakers.
First-mover advantage: Early restakers capture both yield streams while building operational expertise before restaking becomes commoditized.
The shift from 5% to 20% NRR combined with the launch of actual revenue-generating services demonstrates restaking economics moving from theory to practice.
Next Steps
The shift from 5% to 20% NRR changes the strategic calculation for institutional restaking. Accessing those returns safely requires infrastructure built for institutional requirements — proven reliability, professional risk management, and dedicated support.
P2P.org has secured over $10 billion in assets for 130+ institutional clients across 40+ networks. Our EigenLayer infrastructure brings the same operational standards to restaking that we've delivered since 2018.