Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz's crypto division a16z crypto has additionally invested $70 million to purchase EIGEN tokens from the Ethereum re-staking protocol EigenLayer to help accelerate the promotion and commercialization of the new development platform EigenCloud. a16z crypto general partner Ali Yahya stated that this investment has a lock-up period.
EigenLayer is overcoming the technical bottlenecks of blockchain to achieve a new class of applications built on verifiable solutions. Yahya stated in a statement shared with (The Block): 'We are excited to expand our investment in this project.'
a16z crypto previously led a $100 million Series B funding round for the core development team of Eigen Labs. Earlier, Eigen Labs completed a $50 million Series A funding round led by Blockchain Capital in March 2023, with other participating institutions including Coinbase Ventures and Polychain Capital.
After nearly a year of R&D, EigenCloud officially launched on Tuesday, integrating core services such as data availability service EigenDA, dispute resolution service EigenVerify, and execution service EigenCompute into a unified and programmable environment. The team explained that the platform is built on EigenLayer and powered by the EIGEN token, enabling developers to create trustless Web2 applications with blockchain-level verifiability.
Specifically, EigenCloud leverages the cryptoeconomic security of EigenLayer to extend verifiability to fields such as AI, healthcare, and media, allowing off-chain computations to be carried out with on-chain trust guarantees. Eigen Labs CEO Sreeram Kannan stated:
EigenCloud will enable the next generation of disruptive, mass-market crypto applications, bridging the gap between 'what developers want to build on-chain' and 'what blockchains actually allow them to build'. EigenCloud expands the programmability of cryptocurrencies, allowing almost anything to be verified on-chain. This opens up opportunities for developers to create highly ambitious products, such as: decentralized digital marketplaces, on-chain insurance, fully on-chain games, automated adjudication systems, powerful prediction markets, and verifiable artificial intelligence.
The evolution is here. The age of verifiable apps has begun. Introducing EigenCloud, a platform for verifiable apps, services, and AI, built on EigenLayer, secured by the EIGEN token. Crypto has spent a decade building trustless infrastructure. Now it's time to build on it. pic.twitter.com/AjXO6lOoMd
— EigenCloud (@eigenlayer) June 17, 2025
The EIGEN token supports the off-chain programmability of EigenCloud while ensuring complete verifiability. The team stated that stakers may benefit from fees generated from platform usage in the future.
Eigen Labs will release the alpha version of EigenCloud this week, including a major upgrade to EigenDA and a preview version of EigenVerify, which can implement a penalty mechanism through the forkability of the EIGEN token.
According to CoinGecko data, the price of the EIGEN coin has dropped by about 26% in the past week, with a trading price of approximately $1.2 before the deadline.
Related reports: (EigenLayer insiders violated the lock-up period to sell coins! The official stated: An investigation is underway) (Analyzing the leader in 're-staking': The business logic and valuation derivation of EigenLayer)
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