EigenLayer has just released the whitepaper for its protocol token, EIGEN, introducing many novel and complex concepts such as Intersubjective, Work Token, Token Forking, slashing-by-forking, and Intersubjective staking. These terms have quickly become the focus of community discussion.
The initial intention of the EigenLayer protocol design is to generalize the use of Ethereum nodes, allowing these nodes to perform other business logic to increase revenue, while also providing additional income for users participating in ETH consensus. However, while increasing the utility of nodes also brings risks. Among these risks, in addition to observable objective risks, there are also uncertainties in the subjective and objective areas. Although this uncertainty cannot be completely guaranteed through cryptography and mathematics, it is based on “social consensus”. This is what is known as “Intersubjective”, which I prefer to translate as “social consensus”.
From this perspective, because it is “social consensus,” their protocol token also needs to be forkable. And if it can be forked, it needs to design a dual-token isolation model and logic for initiating forks as a supplement. It is more like Ethereum implementing a whole set of network logic, with both (social) consensus and nodes, and the ability to fork, but it is not a blockchain.
In addition, I also recall some anecdotes related to Work Tokens and Weak subjectivity as a supplement.
What is a Work Token
Work Tokens have been discussed since around 2018, and the reason they are known to more people is because of Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani. In short, in the Work Token model, service providers can only have the right to perform work on the network by staking the native tokens of the network. In other words, nodes need to provide tokens and services to receive rewards. Of course, with the popularization of on-chain liquidity and DeFi protocols in recent years, the tokens that nodes need to stake can be invested through third parties, without the need for nodes to provide a large amount of assets themselves. This has also become the current model of EigenLayer: users provide ETH, Liquid Restaking Protocol provides liquidity, node operators provide hardware, and AVS provides business logic.
For more information about Work Tokens and other token models, I recommend starting with this article by Multicoin: https://multicoin.capital/2018/02/13/new-models-utility-tokens/
What is Intersubjective?
First, let’s define two key terms: Objective and Subjective. Errors caused by blockchain and decentralized networks can be classified into the following four categories based on their nature:
Objective errors: These errors are based on data and cryptography and can be explicitly verified, such as the execution process of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Intersubjective errors: These errors involve social consensus among groups. When certain behaviors or judgments go beyond this consensus, they are considered Intersubjective errors.
Unobservable errors: These errors are known only to the victims and cannot be observed by others.
Subjective errors: These errors are entirely based on personal experience and perspective, leading to results without consensus.
EigenLayer believes that unobservable errors and subjective errors are difficult to correct and therefore proposes using ETH to avoid objective errors and using EIGEN to avoid Intersubjective errors.
The concept of Intersubjective can be seen as a state between “objective” and “subjective”. The term is composed of “Inter” (meaning “between” or “mutual,” like in “interactive” or “internet”) and Subjective. Therefore, Intersubjective refers to a subjective state formed among individuals, a consensus formed through interaction within society.
For example, in the financial market, the statement “1 BTC = 1 USD” is generally not accepted, and this consensus error can be classified as an Intersubjective error. Therefore, if we want to explain Intersubjective, we can understand it as “social consensus,” which is the common acceptance of certain ideas or facts within a group.
Although there are subtle differences between “social consensus” and Intersubjective in academic and professional discussions, Intersubjective focuses more on describing the shared process of subjective experience and knowledge among individuals, while “social consensus” focuses more on the results of collective decision-making and action.
In a simple review of the EigenLayer protocol, users can deposit ETH in the Liquid Restaking Protocol, and these protocols will stake these ETH to run Ethereum validation nodes. These validation nodes will also run various middleware services such as oracles, cross-chain bridges, and data availability for end applications.
For AVS, it can also be divided into two types: objective and Intersubjective. Objective AVS is based on cryptography and mathematics and can be quantified and verified explicitly. In the EigenLayer design, these AVS can rely on Restaking ETH as a security guarantee. On the other hand, Intersubjective AVS, such as oracles, cannot be verified on-chain, so they can only rely on social consensus among nodes. Data recognized by a sufficient number of nodes is considered trustworthy.
In summary, Restaking ETH will serve as the work token for objective AVS in the EigenLayer protocol, while EIGEN will serve as the work token for Intersubjective AVS.
Can Protocol Tokens Fork?
Token forking is also a novel concept. When people talk about the forkability of blockchains, they usually refer to the open-source code or the network itself, not the ERC-20 tokens, which are theoretically not forkable and do not have this ability by default. This is because tokens, as smart contracts, rely entirely on the objective attributes of the EVM.
However, EigenLayer believes that in their framework, the forkability of tokens is a safeguard, even if it is rare. If the number of malicious attackers in the EigenLayer network exceeds half, ordinary users can fork the tokens in this way, and then all users and AVS can choose the corresponding tokens based on their own situations. This is essentially letting social consensus determine which token is the most legitimate. They also refer to this concept as slashing-by-forking, which is derived from an article written by Vitalik Buterin 9 years ago.
To support this forking ability, a significant amount of logic needs to be added. For example, if tokens can be forked, can EIGEN still be used as collateral for lending protocols? Therefore, they designed a dual-token isolation model, where EIGEN cannot be forked, but another token, bEIGEN, can be forked. They also designed a process for initiating forks and compensation logic.
However, Ethereum’s Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus has long had a concept called “Weak subjectivity” (also invented by Vitalik Buterin), which is also an intermediate concept between “objective” and “subjective”. And only blockchain with PoS consensus has the attribute of Weak subjectivity.
For PoW networks, because the cost of computing power competition is real, the longest chain is the most secure, and can be considered completely “objective”. For PoS networks, the cost of producing blocks is negligible, and the cost of attacks is also low. Therefore, for nodes that have just joined the network, they need to retrieve social information and find this “Weak subjectivity” to objectively participate in the PoS process. So there are some “subjective” factors before entering the correct network.
But for nodes that have already entered the correct Ethereum network and participate in consensus, all consensus processes and EVM execution processes are objective, guaranteed by cryptography and mathematics. For example, the determinism of EVM input and output, and the rules for slashing such as double-signing are all explicit.
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