Solayer Opens Restaking Deposits, Hits $20 Million Cap Within 45 Minutes

According to Blockworks, Solayer, a startup developing a product similar to EigenLayer on Solana, began accepting restaking deposits on Thursday afternoon. The deposit period, which was by invitation only, had a limit of $20 million. Users had the option to restake SOL directly on Solayer or deposit liquid staking products such as mSOL, bSOL, JITOSOL, and INF. With this private access launch, Solayer joins the competition to establish a restaking ecosystem on the Solana blockchain. Few Solana restaking protocols have been launched, Picasso being an exception with its own version of Solana restaking. Solayer reached its $20 million cap within 45 minutes of opening withdrawals, as confirmed by a member of the Solayer core team. The startup is also reportedly seeking to raise $8 million at an $80 million valuation, with Polychain leading the round. Restaking involves using staked tokens that secure proof-of-stake blockchains to secure another layer of applications, effectively staking staked tokens a second time. This process enhances the security of the blockchain's base layer and utilizes idle staked assets, creating additional yield opportunities. By distributing security responsibilities across multiple layers, restaking improves network resilience and maximizes the utility of staked tokens. Solana's security is ensured by a combination of proof-of-stake and proof-of-history, making it a suitable network for restaking. The concept was first introduced on Ethereum by EigenLayer, which has raised over $150 million in venture funding and secured over $14 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama. Solayer, which has been in development since the end of 2023, has referred to the first deposit period as 'epoch 0'. Assets restaked will be locked in the protocol until 'epoch 3'. A roadmap posted by Solayer on Wednesday indicated that a liquid restaking token called sSOL would be launched in 'epoch 6'. The duration of each epoch has not been specified by the Solayer team, but it has been confirmed that sSOL will be an LRT. In a blog post, Solayer expressed its excitement about leading the 'scaling out' movement of the Solana base chain in the coming year.