Lido co-founders back EigenLayer rival Symbiotic: report

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A report from crypto media platform CoinDesk claims that Lido co-founders Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, along with venture capital firm Paradigm, are secretly funding a new company called Symbiotic.

Notably, Symbiotic allows users to restake assets like Lido’s staked ether (stETH) token and other ERC-20 assets, unlike EigenLayer, which only accepts ETH tokens. Such a positioning would mean that Symbiotic would be in direct competition with EigenLayer in the restaking sector.

Internal documents obtained from an initial report describe Symbiotic as “a permissionless restaking protocol that provides flexible mechanisms” that would serve decentralized networks and coordinate node operators.

The documents also indicate that several teams in the restaking ecosystem are already in discussions to integrate with Symbiotic. The involvement of Cyber Fund, led by Lido’s co-founders, and Paradigm, its main venture backer, could position Symbiotic as a primary competitor to EigenLayer.

“The space is big enough for more than one player to be big,” said an anonymous restaking infrastructure operator planning to integrate with Symbiotic.

Symbiotic’s approach to collateral includes ERC-20 tokens, withdrawal credentials of Ethereum validators, or other onchain assets without limitations regarding which blockchains the positions are held on. The project aims to be fully permissionless and decentralized, according to Mike Silgadze, co-founder of Ether.Fi.

Symbiotic has not released any public information or confirmed its launch date, but sources expect the platform to be available by the end of this year.

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