Symbiotic, a groundbreaking universal staking protocol and a competitor to EigenLayer, has officially launched Relay, a comprehensive software development kit (SDK). This innovative toolkit empowers protocols to stake assets on Ethereum while verifying that stake across multiple blockchains, thereby setting a new standard for decentralized finance (DeFi).
Staking plays a crucial role in securing blockchains in exchange for rewards. In traditional staking systems, validators are required to commit collateral—referred to as “stake”—to participate in transaction processing. The introduction of “restaking” protocols like Symbiotic allows users to leverage their stakes across various blockchains simultaneously, providing an enhanced opportunity for investors to earn additional yield.
Relay serves as a generalized iteration of Symbiotic’s restaking technology, functioning as a versatile toolkit that enables developers to implement Symbiotic-style restaking within virtually any crypto ecosystem. According to the Symbiotic team, this technology facilitates the creation of verifiable and secure coordination layers for decentralized applications (dApps) spanning multiple chains.
At its core, the SDK integrates developers into the Symbiotic network, enabling them to configure networks to utilize stake on one blockchain for verifying activities on another. This seamless connectivity allows for greater flexibility and functionality across diverse blockchain environments.
“This makes it easy to build bridges, oracles, rollups, or risk protocols that are secured by real stake and verifiable anywhere their users are, without having to bootstrap a validator set, trust a multisig, or sacrifice decentralization,” the team highlighted in a recent press release. “For users, this means multichain applications which were previously bespoke designs, fragmented, or complex, can now be easily built with verifiable security from day one.”
The launch of Relay marked a pivotal milestone in Symbiotic’s recent $29 million Series A funding round, which was led by Pantera Capital, alongside participation from Coinbase Ventures and over 100 angel investors.
“Until now, building a secure multichain protocol meant choosing between trusted relayers or expensive, bespoke infrastructure,” stated Algys Ievlev, co-founder of Symbiotic. “Relay addresses this challenge by providing builders with a method to employ real stake for verifying real outcomes across chains without compromising on cost, security, or developer experience. We are confident that this will become the standard approach for protocols to coordinate across chains.”
To learn more about this significant development, read our full article: Pantera Leads $29M Funding for EigenLayer Rival Symbiotic to Expand Staking Play
