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EigenLayer Adds Key ‘Slashing’ Feature, Completing Original Vision

Almost one year to the day after Ethereum protocol EigenLayer launched its “restaking” network to unprecedented industry fanfare, the network is finally adding a core feature that was, until now, glaringly absent: “slashing.”
Eigen Labs hopes slashing — EigenLayer’s system for keeping “restakers” honest by revoking collateral if they act maliciously — will finally realize the year-old protocol’s original pitch.
“We are happy to say now that the whole promise has been delivered,” said EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan.
EigenLayer became one of the buzziest protocols in Ethereum history when it introduced investors to the concept of restaking, an evolution of “proof-of-stake” on Ethereum.
Ethereum’s «proof-of-stake» system lets users «stake» ether (ETH) collateral with the chain to help run and secure it in exchange for interest. EigenLayer lets users stake ETH on Ethereum and then restake it again with other protocols for even more interest.
Despite launching its main network last year, slashing, a primary component of EigenLayer’s shared security technology, was missing until Thursday. This led to criticism that EigenLayer’s ambitious pitch didn’t match its technical reality.
Today, EigenLayer boasts more than $7 billion in restaked assets, making it one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) apps. It also supports an ecosystem of 39 actively validated services (AVSs) that use its security model.
The new slashing system will roll out on Thursday, but AVS teams will need to opt-in, meaning it may take some time before slashing is live in any applications. Eigen Labs announced April 17 as the launch date for slashing earlier this month.
Redesigning for Safety
EigenLayer users restake ether (ETH) and other tokens through third-party “operators” — infrastructure providers who delegate their pooled EigenLayer deposits across different AVSs.
Operators that delegate stake to an AVS help run it in exchange for rewards: the more they stake, the higher the rewards.
In theory, slashing ensures these operators are running AVSs correctly. If operators “are proven to be malicious according to an on-chain Ethereum contract, then they may lose their stake or a portion of their stake,” explained Kannan.
When slashing goes live on Thursday, AVSs will have the option to set slashing conditions and begin penalizing bad actors.
“Other than Ethereum and Cosmos, most proof-of-stake systems, including Solana, are running live without any slashing,” said Kannan. “Even though it is the core accountability mechanism, it’s not like every proof of stake system already has this—that’s not true. That’s what we’re building.”
As for why EigenLayer received so much blowback compared to other incomplete proof-of-stake systems: “We’ve talked a lot about slashing, so we are held to that bar,” said Kannan.
Removing leverage
EigenLayer’s slashing system was redesigned last year to address fears that the protocol introduced an unsafe form of leverage to the Ethereum ecosystem.
“I think we completely cured that problem with this redesign,” said Kannan.
The entire idea behind EigenLayer is to allow new protocols to immediately tap into a large security pool — the total pool of restaked assets.
In proof-of-stake systems, the amount of assets staked with a protocol roughly corresponds to how secure it is. In general, attacking a protocol like Ethereum requires controlling half or more of the assets staked, which can run into billions of dollars.
EigenLayer’s pooling model has led to fears that a poorly built slashing system could expose the entire protocol to new risks, where a single bad actor on one AVS could harm every operator.
The version of EigenLayer going live Thursday, which has been tested on Ethereum’s developer networks since December, was designed so operators can limit their exposure to a given AVS, meaning bad actors on one won’t necessarily impact another.
“You have unique attributability of stake to a particular AVS,” explained Kannan. “As an AVS, I know I have, like, 10 million of ‘slashable’ stake that is not double counted — so there is no leverage.”
Additionally, the system has been configured so that “even if my AVS has a small amount of slashable stake, it is still protected in some sense, by the large amount of capital,” said Kannan, since there are still systems in place to ensure the cost of attacking a system increases with the total value of the pool of restaked assets.
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Canary Capital Files for Tron ETF With Staking Capabilities

Canary Capital is looking to launch an exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the price of Tron’s native token, TRX, according to a filing.
The hedge fund submitted a Form S-1 for the Canary Staked TRX ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. As the name suggests, the fund — if approved — would stake portions of its holdings.
This would be done through third-party providers, with BitGo acting as custodian for the assets. The fund would track TRX’s spot price using CoinDesk Indices calculations.
A proposed ticker as well as the management fee for the product have not been shared yet.
Issuers had initially filed applications for spot ethereum (ETH) ETFs with the staking feature included but removed them in an amended filing later in order to receive approval from the SEC on their proposals.
While the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler was strictly against staking, issuers have grown more hopeful that they will be able to add the feature to their spot ether funds, among others, with the appointment of crypto-friendly Chair Paul Atkins.
A decision on a February request from Grayscale to allow staking in the Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHE) and the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH) was postponed by the regulator just a few days ago.
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Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

Just four months ahead of their criminal sentencing for operating a $577 million cryptocurrency mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of HashFlare were seemingly mistakenly ordered to self-deport by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — an instruction that directly contradicted a court order for the men to remain in Washington state until they are sentenced in August.
In a joint letter to the court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin told District Judge Robert Lasnik of the Western District of Washington that both men had received “disturbing communications” from DHS ordering them to leave the country immediately.
“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.
Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the U.S. of their own volition — they were extradited from their native Estonia at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their HashFlare scheme. Though they initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, in February they both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on bond since last July.
“Although there is nothing Ivan and Sergei would want more than to immediately go home, they understood that they are also under Court order to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and lead counsel for Potenko, wrote in the pair’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
In his letter, Bini said DHS’s emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin «significant anxiety.”
“We and our clients have all seen recent news. Immigration authorities make mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they should not be deported,” Bini wrote.
Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, the DOJ filed its own letter with the court saying that prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division and secured a year-long deferral to the self-deportation order.
“This should provide ample time for the sentencing to take place,” the prosecution’s letter said.
DHS did not respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Potapenko and Turogin are slated to be sentenced on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to time served, meaning no additional time in prison, and to be sent home to Estonia “immediately.”
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CoinDesk Weekly Recap: EigenLayer, Kraken, Coinbase, AWS

Following last week’s tariff-caused drama, this was a relatively quiet week in crypto. Bitcoin remained stable around $84k. The CoinDesk 20, which tracks about 80% of the market, was up about 4% in the last seven days — i.e. nothing historic.
Still, plenty happened. On Tuesday, much of crypto went offline because of a tech issue at AWS, showing how the decentralized economy isn’t always that decentralized. Shaurya Malwa reported the news early. Bitcoin and other major cryptos slipped on bad news for Nvidia, Omkar Godbole reported.
Mantra, a project focused on real world assets, lost 90% of its value. Explanations varied (the company said it was due to “force liquidations” exchanges).
Meanwhile, EigenLayer, a restaking leader, rolled out a “slashing” feature meant to address security concerns (Sam Kessler reported). OKX, a major exchange, announced plans to set up in California following a $500 million settlement with the SEC over claims it operated previously in the U.S. without a money transmitter license. Cheyenne Ligon had that story.
In less good news, Kraken laid off “hundreds” of staff ahead of an expected IPO. And Coinbase became embroiled in a “front running controversy” linked to a curiously named token on its Base L2. Privacy advocates reacted with alarm to rumors that Binance was about to delist Zcash following a long decline in the value of privacy coins.
In D.C. news, Jesse Hamilton reported on a new wave of crypto lobbyists flooding the capital. Some asked if there are now too many trade groups and whether they really all could be effective.
Friends With Benefits, a buzzy social club for creative technologists, launched a new program to build Web3 products for music, film, publishing and other fun activities. (I wrote that one.)
Of course, there was plenty happening in the economy and markets (Trump’s disgust for Fed chair Powell fed into the unease). But, in crypto, it was pretty much business as usual. Fortunes won, fortunes lost, fortunes deferred.
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