Unifying Network Security

Staking is the process of locking up your crypto assets to help secure a blockchain network and support its operations such as validating transactions. In return, you earn rewards, typically in the form of more tokens. It’s a key part of many proof-of-stake blockchains and a way to put your assets to work.

Restaking is a revolutionary concept that allows you to leverage your already-staked assets (through Liquid Staking Token - LSTs) to provide additional security and validation capabilities to other networks and services.

• Staking: Locking up your tokens in a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network to help secure it and earn rewards.
• Liquid Staking: Staking your tokens while receiving liquid staking tokens (LSTs) that represent your staked assets and can be traded.
• Restaking: Using your staked tokens to provide additional security and validation services to other networks, earning rewards.
• Liquid Restaking: Combining liquid staking and restaking to maintain liquidity while maximizing rewards by restaking across networks.

Shared security allows networks to inherit economic security from Ethereum or other ecosystems, reducing fragmentation and increasing decentralization. This model helps new or smaller networks scale without building their own validator set, improving overall blockchain security.

Restaking curation is the process by which curators design and manage vault strategies that determine how and where economic security is allocated. This promotes decentralization, improves risk distribution, and creates a competitive landscape that makes rewards more competitive across the landscape.

While both aim to build shared security infrastructure for Ethereum, EigenLayer relies on restakers delegating to operators or LRT protocols, who choose which networks to secure. Symbiotic, on the other hand, introduces permissionless Curator Vaults, giving curators the power to shape allocation and network alignment, enabling greater flexibility and decentralization.