Actively Validated Services (AVSs) are the protocols that use EigenLayer’s restaked ETH for security. Instead of building their own validator networks, AVSs borrow security from Ethereum’s existing stakers through EigenLayer. The first major AVS was EigenDA — a data availability layer that provides cheap data storage for rollups. Other early AVSs included oracles, bridges, sequencers, and keeper networks.
The AVS model solves a real problem. New protocols that need validator security traditionally face a brutal bootstrapping challenge: they need validators to be secure, but validators won’t join without sufficient rewards, and rewards require usage, which requires security. EigenLayer breaks this cycle by letting new protocols inherit Ethereum’s security from day one. The cost is sharing revenue with restakers, but the benefit is immediate security without the years-long bootstrapping period.
By 2025, dozens of AVSs had launched or were in development on EigenLayer and Symbiotic. The variety was impressive: decentralized sequencers for rollups, AI inference verification, cross-chain messaging, price oracles, random number generation, and identity verification. Each AVS paid restakers for security, creating a marketplace where the price of security was determined by supply and demand. Restakers could choose which AVSs to validate, balancing yield against risk for each service.
The long-term vision is that restaking becomes a generalized security marketplace — any protocol that needs validation can purchase it from Ethereum’s massive staker base, and stakers earn diversified yield from dozens of services simultaneously. Whether this vision materializes depends on AVS adoption, slashing design, and whether the economic incentives align sustainably across all participants. The infrastructure is built. The ecosystem is growing. The stress test is still coming.
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