Solayer, a startup creating a restaking product similar to EigenLayer, began accepting deposits on Thursday afternoon.
This invite-only deposit phase had a $20 million cap. Users could restake SOL directly on Solayer or use liquid staking products like mSOL, bSOL, JITOSOL, and INF.
Few Solana restaking protocols have gone live, with the exception of Picasso, which runs its own version of Solana restaking.
The high demand for Solayer was evident as it reached its $20 million cap within 45 minutes, a member of the Solayer core team confirmed to Blockworks. Institutional investors are also showing interest as Solayer aims to raise $8 million at an $80 million valuation led by Polychain.
Still, there has been little information about Solayer. The protocol said in a blog post that it has “been in the works since [the] end of 2023”. It called the first deposit period “epoch 0,” and the restaked assets will remain locked until “epoch 3.”
According to a roadmap released on Wednesday, Solayer plans to launch a liquid restaking token, sSOL, in epoch 6. While the duration of each epoch is not revealed, the team confirmed sSOL as a liquid restaking token (LRT).
Restaking involves using staked tokens from proof-of-stake blockchains to secure an additional layer of applications, effectively staking the tokens a second time. This enhances the security of the blockchain’s base layer, optimises the use of staked assets, and provides extra yield opportunities. By distributing security tasks across multiple layers, restaking boosts network resilience and maximises staked token utility.
EigenLayer first introduced restaking on Ethereum. The concept has seen substantial success with over $150 million in venture funding and more than $14 billion in total value locked (TVL), as reported by DeFiLlama.
Solayer aims to lead the “scaling out” movement from the Solana base chain in the upcoming year, as mentioned in their blog post.