Near Foundation partners with Eigen Labs for more efficient Ethereum rollup transactions

Quick Take

  • Near Foundation has partnered with Eigen Labs, the startup building out Ethereum restaking protocol Eigen Layer. 
  • The collaboration makes cheaper and quicker Ethereum rollup transactions, while reducing liquidity fragmentation between Layer 2s. 

Near Foundation, the organization building out the Near protocol, has partnered with Eigen Labs, the startup developing the restaking protocol Eigen Layer.

The collaboration aims to create cheaper transactions for Ethereum rollups, according to a statement. Transactions will occur within three to four seconds while using low-latency cross rollup communication. Additionally, liquidity fragmentation will be reduced between Layer 2s.

"For Eigen Layer, this collaboration will provide fast settlement for cross-rollup transactions and showcases adoption of restaking across the Ethereum ecosystem and beyond. For Near, the collaboration will also extend to transitioning the Near-Ethereum Rainbow Bridge to an actively validated service (AVS). This will create a better bridging experience between Near and Ethereum. Transactions will reach finality faster, with stronger security guarantees and decentralization," Near Foundation said.

Eigen Labs

"NEAR Foundation is proud to partner with such an excellent team as Eigen Labs to offer a fast finality layer for ETH rollups. The fast finality layer showcases the strengths of NEAR's technology while making the Open Web more usable, which has always been the core goal for NEAR," Near protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin said. "It will also help defragment liquidity for Ethereum rollups and make all of web3 more interoperable as a result."

Eigen Layer allows users to restake ETH and tinker with the consensus layer without requiring a new blockchain, The Block previously reported. Eigen Labs raised $50 million in Series A funding after announcing intentions to do so a month earlier. 


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About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.

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