Currently Symbiotic is live on the devnet.

The mainnet is planned for Q4 2024, following the completion of five audits from the 3rd-party teams and networks' readiness to the mainnet deployment.

Restaking is the functionality that enables users to reuse their staked assets (ETH, ERC-20 tokens, withdrawal credentials of Ethereum validators, other on-chain assets, such as LP positions, etc.) to secure other networks. 

For network builders, it provides access to capital and the operator set without the need to spend additional resources on creating both from scratch.

Restaking is available through the Symbiotic app, but some restake caps (e.g., wsETH and ENA) are full.

Early deposits aim to scale Symbiotic’s shared security platform. However, the Symbiotic team wisely capped re/stakeable assets in size during the initial stages of the rollout and will be limited to major token ecosystems, reflecting current market conditions in the interest of preserving neutrality and ensuring sustainable growth.

As well this may bring potential future opportunities to early supporters.

During the next stages, new collateral assets should be added according to the broader ecosystem interest demand.

Symbiotic brings a range of benefits to powered networks, making it an appealing solution for building:

• More flexibility through modularity, as soon as networks control all aspects of their (re)staking implementation, including assets supported, their ratios and caps, node operator selection, rewards, slashing and associated mechanisms.
• Immutability that minimizes risks, as non-upgradeable core contracts remove external governance risks and single points of failure, while minimal flexible contract design minimizes Execution Layer risks.
• Enhanced capital efficiency. A permissionless, multi-asset, and network-agnostic design enables scalable and capital-efficient sourcing of economic security. 

Symbiotic consists of 5 interconnected components, that define its unique design and encompass many different actors.

Find a detailed explanation of each component below.



Collateral is Symbiotic's economic security layer. It is an abstraction used to represent underlying on-chain assets, which are both chain- and asset-agnostic. This means they can be in the form of ERC-20 tokens, withdrawal credentials of Ethereum validators, or other on-chain assets, such as LP positions, without limitations regarding which blockchains the positions are held on.

Symbiotic achieves this by separating the ability to slash assets from the underlying asset itself, similar to how liquid staking tokens (LST) create tokenized representations of underlying staked positions. Imagine collateral positions in Symbiotic as ERC-20 tokens with extended functionality to handle slashing incidents if applicable. 

Symbiotic allows to deposit of collateral tokens into the vaults, which delegate them to operators across Symbiotic networks. 

Vaults are the delegation and restaking management layer of Symbiotic. They handle the delegation of collateral to operators across networks, as well as enable three crucial parts of the Symbiotic economy:

• Accounting by handling deposits, withdrawals, and slashings of collaterals and in turn their underlying assets.
• Delegation strategies by defining delegation and restaking strategies to operators across Symbiotic networks, which networks have to opt into.
• Rewards by distributing staking rewards from networks to collateral depositors.

Operators and services such as liquid re/staking protocols (LRT) can create vaults to differentiate their offerings. 

In a nutshell, they are the infrastructure layer of Symbiotic.

Operators are entities that run the infrastructure for networks. They can opt in to networks and receive economic security from restakers through vaults.

Networks, or the service layer in Symbiotic, are a general definition of any protocol that requires a distributed set of node operators that will provide validation services and ensure the network's smooth operations. In some cases, protocols may consist of multiple sub-networks with different infrastructure roles.

These decentralized networks can utilize Symbiotic to flexibly source security in the form of the operator set and economic collateral.

Network builders can define, control, and adapt their methodology for onboarding, incentivizing, and penalizing operators and their delegators (restakers).

Symbiotic supports various modes of handling slashing incidents through the introduction of resolvers. Resolvers, in the form of entities or contracts, can pass or veto slashing penalties incurred by operators. They are agreed upon by vaults — representing providers of economic security, stakers, — and the networks they provide security for. 

While the defined above roles are powerful on their own, the true power of Symbiotic lies in the interplay between these components, resulting in the emergence of new entities, such as curators. These curators leverage Symbiotic's modularity to manage, optimize, and provide transparency to the interactions between different components of the system, further enhancing the overall efficiency of the ecosystem as a whole.

Currently, curators can take several forms:

• Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs). These entities are experts in asset management and handle many assets with detailed scoring frameworks.
• Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs). Liquid staking teams have years of experience creating scoring frameworks and coordinating large operator sets, managing system upgrades, and integrating assets into the broader DeFi landscape.
• Operators can also act as curators. Their expertise lies in operating many forms of infrastructure, industry-specific DevOps knowledge, scoring networks from both the economic and technical sides, and have deep experience in managing node redundancy and uptime.
• Risk managers and research entities. These curators focus on scoring and quantifying various risks within the ecosystem, helping restakers and networks make informed decisions. This can be applied to research groups, consulting agencies, or even independent researchers.
• DAOs and ecosystem governance.

The list will grow as Symbiotic matures and the restaking landscape increases in complexity.

Everstake is a seasoned validator across 70+ blockchains. Thus, once Symbiotic mainnet is deployed, we will serve as the Operator within Symbiotic app. Within our role, we will run the infrastructure for networks, as well as create the vault with collateral restaked from the delegators. 

Everstake professionalism, experience, and track record of reliable operation allowed us to become one of only 40 Cohort 0 participants.

https://app.symbiotic.fi

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