Symbiotic Protocol: Overview & Current Landscape

Symbiotic: The Remarkable First Month

Arguably The Most Successful First Day

Symbiotic had a remarkable launch, with over 58K ETH deposited within the first 24 hours, totaling approximately $200 million. This impressive feat underscores the high demand and trust the protocol garnered from the outset. It is important to realize and analyze the implications of this event, as we take a deep dive to understand Symbiotic.

Rapid TVL Growth

Symbiotic's Total Value Locked (TVL) has soared to over $1.3 billion, a milestone that took EigenLayer around six months to achieve. This rapid growth highlights Symbiotic's strong market presence and user adoption.

Asset Support

Symbiotic already supports around 10 assets, including wstETH, wBETH, cbETH, sUDE, mETH, rETH, ENA, swETH, srfxETH, and ETHx, providing a broad spectrum of options for users.

Unique Depositors

The protocol boasts over 66K unique depositors, showcasing its widespread appeal and user base diversity.

Partnerships

Symbiotic has formed over 25 partnerships with leading LRTs, LSTs, DeFi projects, and networks, creating a robust and interconnected ecosystem. More details on these partnerships will be covered later.

TVL Composition

• wstETH: 63.9%
• wBETH: 13.4%
• cbETH: 5.6%
• Other LSTs: Remaining 17.1%

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Over 70% of TVL on Symbiotic is from LRTs, with EtherFi dominating with a 42% share.

(Source: Kairos_Res | DuneAnalytics by @HenryBitmodeth)

Restaking leverages Ethereum's crypto-economic security and its vast decentralized validator set, enabling developers to deploy innovative networks (or AVSs) without security concerns. It's a positive-sum game where stakers, developers, and operators collaborate to build robust, resilient, and decentralized networks and services.

Enter Symbiotic Protocol

Symbiotic aims to revolutionize restaking with a permissionless, asset-agnostic layer for all of crypto. Designed as a generalized shared security layer, Symbiotic empowers network builders to source operators and scale economic security for their decentralized networks.

Source: Symbiotic Docs

Key Features and Components of Symbiotic

• Multi-Asset Collateral: Supports ERC-20 compatible assets, LP tokens, and other digital assets.
• Vaults: Custom contracts managing the delegation of collateral to operators.
• Operators: Entities like Luganodes, are critical for infrastructure support.
• Resolvers: Contracts handling slashing penalties, ensuring fairness.
• Networks: Protocols requiring validator nodes for security.

Overview of Vaults in Symbiotic

Vaults are the delegation and management layer of Symbiotic, crucial for handling deposits, withdrawals, slashing, reward distribution, and delegation strategies.

Key Features of Vaults

• ERC20 Representation: Symbiotic mints an ERC20 token to represent your deposit.
• Customization: Vaults can be customized, such as multi-operator vaults. Immutable pre-configured vaults avoid risks associated with upgradeable contracts.

Source: Symbiotic Docs

Core Functions of Vaults

• Deposits and Withdrawals
• Slashing
• Reward Distribution
• Delegation Strategies

Symbiotic vaults provide a flexible and secure environment for managing collateral and staking activities, fostering a robust and resilient ecosystem.

Enter Mellow Protocol

Mellow Protocol is a liquid restaking protocol optimized for the "Networks" or "AVS" ecosystem, providing vault smart contracts tailored to different risk profiles and managed by curators. These vaults leverage Ethereum's flexibility, composability, and security, therefore mitigating AVS risks effectively.

Strategic Partnerships and Integrations

Symbiotic has established a wide range of strategic partnerships and integrations to enhance its ecosystem and offer innovative solutions. Below are key partnerships and their unique contributions:

LRTs

• Sympie by Magpie: A high-tech SubDAO offering Liquid Restaking Services. (Source)
• Affine DeFi: ultraETHs, a LidoFinance stETH-focused LRT. (Source)
• Amphor.io: Automated yield enhancement across LRT. (Source)
• YieldNest: Liquid Restaking YieldNest-curated products. (Source)
• Swell: Building advanced liquid staking and restaking experiences. (Source)
• ether.fi: Leading Liquid Restaking Protocol on Ethereum. (Source)
• Renzo Protocol: Leading Liquid restaking protocol and strategy manager. (Source)

Networks (like AVSs)

• Marlin Protocol: Verifiable computing protocol secured by restaked ETH. (Source)
• Fairblock Network: Securing dynamic operator sets for cryptographic services. (Source)
• Chainbound: Trustless protocol for Ethereum block commitments. (Source)
• Cycle Network: Aggregate liquidity network for all blockchains. (Source)
• Ojo Network: Cross-chain oracle network leveraging Symbiotic. (Source)
• Aizel Network: Building a verifiable AI network. (Source)

Other Important Ecosystem Partners

• Rollkit: Sovereign rollup framework. (Source)
• CIAN Protocol: stETH yield layer with one-click solutions. (Source)
• Mitosis: Adds more yield layers to Symbiotic miAssets. (Source)
• Hyperlane: Open interoperability framework. (Source)
• Blockless: Tools for building secure network-neutral applications. (Source)
• Aori: Orderbook Protocol. (Source)
• Drosera Network: Security automation layer for operators and protocols. (Source)
• Mindnet Work: FHE Restaking Layer for PoS and AI Networks. (Source)
• Pendle: Permissionless yield-trading protocol. (Source)
• StakeStone: Omni-chain LST protocol. (Source)
• Ethena Labs and LayerZero Labs: Integrating with LayerZero’s Decentralized Verifier Network. (Source)
• Lido Finance: Advanced DeFi strategies for stETH. (Source)

Conclusion

Symbiotic Protocol has quickly established itself as a leader in the DeFi space with impressive TVL growth, diverse asset support, and numerous strategic partnerships. By leveraging Ethereum's security, Symbiotic offers innovative restaking solutions for developers, stakers, and operators. Its rapid success and expansion signal a promising future, poised to redefine decentralized finance and shared security. Luganodes will closely follow Symbiotic's development and path through the landscape.

Learn more about Symbiotic: Symbiotic Docs

About Luganodes

Luganodes is a world-class, Swiss-operated, non-custodial blockchain infrastructure provider that has rapidly gained recognition in the industry for offering institutional-grade services. It was born out of the Lugano Plan B Program, an initiative driven by Tether and the City of Lugano. Luganodes maintains an exceptional 99.9% uptime with round-the-clock monitoring by SRE experts. With support for 45+ PoS networks, it ranks among the top validators on Polygon, Polkadot, Sui, and Tron. Luganodes prioritizes security and compliance, holding the distinction of being one of the first staking providers to adhere to all SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 standards as well as offering Chainproof insurance to institutional clients.