In a move long-awaited by crypto traders, EigenLayer, the restaking protocol that has amassed a staggering $15.7 billion in deposits, has finally unveiled its plans for an EIGEN token. The project's whitepaper, released Monday, confirms the introduction of the EIGEN token, marking a significant milestone in the year's most highly anticipated reward giveaways for users of the Ethereum blockchain ecosystem.

According to the Eigen Foundation, the non-profit organization supporting the protocol, the total supply of EIGEN tokens at launch will be approximately 1.67 billion. 45% of this supply will be allocated to the EigenLayer community, with 15% each dedicated to “stakedrops”, future community initiatives, and ecosystem development.

"The total supply of EIGEN at launch is 1,673,646,668.28466 tokens," the foundation revealed in a blog post, adding that this number is derived from encoding the phrase "Open Innovation" onto a classic telephone keypad, underscoring the project's commitment to fostering open innovation within the Ethereum ecosystem.

The anticipation surrounding the EIGEN token has been building for months, with crypto traders speculating about its potential and pouring in deposits even before EigenLayer went live a few weeks ago. The project, led by Sreeram Kannan, the founder and former associate professor at the University of Washington, has been at the forefront of the "restaking" trend, where users' ether (ETH) tokens staked as security on the Ethereum blockchain can be repurposed to secure additional networks or protocols.

Milestone in Ethereum Re-staking: EigenLayer Surpasses $15 Billion | BULB In April, Eigenlayer surpassed $15 billion in restaking Source: DeFiLlama

The Eigen Foundation said 5% of the token supply would be allocated to users based on their staking activities on March 15, at Ethereum block No. 19437000. The claim for these EIGEN tokens will open on May 10 and remain open for 120 days.

Furthermore, investors will receive 29.5% of the token supply, while early contributors will be allocated 25.5%. Both groups will be subject to a three-year lock period, with a full lock in the first year, followed by a linear unlock of 4% of their total allocation each month over the next two years.

Notably, at the launch of the EIGEN token, users will be able to secure EigenDA, EigenLayer's Actively Validated Service (AVS) for data availability, with their EIGEN tokens. Other AVSs are expected to follow, expanding the protocol's capabilities and use cases.

EigenLayer is also rolling out its "intersubjective forking" feature, designed to support "intersubjective faults." This feature aims to empower AVSs to make a wider range of credible commitments, significantly expanding the possibilities of what can be built on EigenLayer, including transaction ordering, databases, prediction markets, storage services, oracles, artificial intelligence, and more.