EigenLayer investigates suspicious wallet that sold $5.5 million worth of EIGEN tokens, potentially violating the lockup schedule

Quick Take

  • EigenLayer said it is investigating a suspicious wallet that sold approximately 1.67 million EIGEN tokens, potentially violating the one-year lock-up for employees and early investors.

The EigenLayer team is looking into “unapproved selling activity” after a possible employee, former employee or early investor sold approximately $5.5 million worth of EIGEN tokens, potentially contravening the token lockup period.

"We are investigating unapproved selling activity associated with this wallet," EigenLayer wrote in a community update on X. "We will share our findings with the community as soon as possible."

According to Arkham Intelligence data, the wallet in question was funded by EigenLayer’s multi-signature Gnosis Safe. Over 1.67 million EIGEN tokens have been offloaded so far.

EigenLayer has not responded to a request for comment at press time.

In addition to prohibiting current and former employees from staking any EIGEN received from Eigen Labs on EigenLayer until at least Sept. 30, 2025, the firm imposed a freeze on selling tokens until next year.

Beginning in September 2025, 4% of each recipient’s EIGEN will unlock each month until all employee and investors’ tokens are unlocked in September 2027, according to the official lockup schedule.

“It was previously communicated that Investors and Early Contributors would be on the above Lockup Schedule,” the team wrote in its documentation.

EIGEN tokens were airdropped beginning May 10, 2024, meaning that the wallet being investigated would still be under the one-year lockup period.

EigenLayer has not responded to a request for comment at press time.

EigenLayer is an Ethereum-based protocol that pioneered the crypto-economic security model known as “restaking,” which enables the reuse of staked ETH to secure decentralized applications.


Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2024 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

Daniel Kuhn is a Senior Journalist and Editor at The Block, where he covers the crypto industry with a particular focus on tech. He previously served as deputy managing editor of opinion/features at CoinDesk. He first appeared in print in Financial Planning, a trade publication magazine. Before journalism, he studied philosophy as an undergrad, English literature in graduate school and business and economic reporting at an NYU professional program. You can connect with him on Twitter and Telegram @danielgkuhn or find him on Urbit as ~dorrys-lonreb.

Editor

To contact the editor of this story:
Jason Shubnell at
[email protected]