Before we get started, this is not a recommendation or endorsement to buy any token(s) mentioned.
This week, we cover Symbiotic, EigenLayer’s fiercest competitor which recently come out stealth!
Backed by the founders of Lido and the investors at Paradigm.Symbiotic Protocol is a shared security protocol, serving as a thin coordination layer, empowering network builders to control and adapt their own restaking implementation in a permissionless manner. Since enabling deposits, it has grown to just over $300M TVL in collateral assets, including wstETH, sUSDe, cbETH, ENA, wBETH, rETH, mETH, swETH, sfrxETH, and ETHx. As of this post, Symbiotic remains in a guarded launch where deposits caps 100% filled for all assets except for ENA.
The Symbiotic protocol is made up of 5 interconnected parts:
Collateral: The security layer is an abstraction used to represent underlying onchain assets, which are chain and asset-agnostic.
Vaults: The restaking layer is possible through the delegation of collateral to operators across networks that can be curated in a custom manner.
Operators: The infrastructure layer represents the entities running infrastructure for networks. The Symbiotic protocol creates a registry of operators, where they can opt-in to networks and receive economic backing from restakers through vaults.
Resolvers: The arbitration layer is made up of the entities or contracts tasked to pass or veto slashing penalties incurred by operators on networks to which they provide services.
Networks: The services layer is the protocols that require a distributed set of node operators to provide trust-minimized services.
Similar to when we ran into capacity issues with EigenLayer caps, there is a way to circumvent the caps via ether.fi’s Super Symbiotic LRT (weETHs). It’s similar to their popular LRT eETH but combined with the Liquid vault for automating yield strategies.
This new Super Symbiotic LRT weETHs allows us to earn 1x Symbiotic, 3x Veda and 3x ether.fi points with this vault on liquid staking tokens in exchange for weETHs. We expect Symbiotic to raise deposit caps in the coming months and for weETHs holders to potentially earn more Symbiotic points.
Given the speculated value of Eigenlayer to be $20B and above, it’s likely Symbiotic’s future token could command a comparable premium, meaning an airdrop could be worth a lot!
Today, I’ll cover how I can start earning an estimated 2.9% APY with weETHs along with points towards a Season 3 ether.fi airdrop, and future airdrops for Symbiotic and Veda.
How to Deposit into ether.fi’s Super Symbiotic LRT
Before we get started, please be aware of these risks.
- Smart contract risk in Symbiotic, ether.fi and Pendle
- Front-end spoof attack on the app frontend
- An economic design exploit
- Colluding signers on any multisig
- Market risk leading to a depeg in weETHs could lead to a loss of funds
- Slashing risk with weETHs
- Systemic risk in DeFi
Here’s how I get started!
- First, I go to the Super Symbiotic LRT Vault under Liquid here and connect my Ethereum wallet.
- I click Deposit, choose a supported asset to deposit, and follow the prompts to Approve and Deposit.
That’s it! I can now return to the Super Symbiotic LRT dashboard here to track my points when they’re retroactively rewarded. I can also withdraw…
DeFi Dad is one of the earliest power users of DeFi, having worked with early Ethereum startups going back to 2018, including Zapper.
