What's this? EIGEN

EigenLayer, the security-as-a-service protocol driving most of the demand in decentralized finance this year, has announced a token: EIGEN.

• EigenLayer enables derivatives of liquid staking derivatives in order to incentivize decentralized networks of computers checking computers.

Why it matters: EigenLayer is the biggest new thing to come along in the bear market, so this token is sure to be huge.

Yes, but: Wow, are they being control freaks about it.

In the weeds: 15% of the total supply will be given to folks who have used the protocol, a third of that is set aside for "Season 1," for those who started participating before March 15.

• The tokens can't be claimed in a bunch of countries (including the U.S. and Canada) and they will go out of their way to stop geo-spoofing with VPNs.
• Tokens won't be tradable for some unknown amount of time, and they might punish folks who make derivatives of the locked tokens (irony of ironies).
• Sundry other complaints.

What we're watching: The token does have a new purpose: intersubjective forking.

• It's a way to use social consensus as a corrective if a service provider gets unjustly punished by the network.

• Bankless has a detailed description of the mechanism (it sounds like the design of an information marketplace Numerai once tried to launch).

By the numbers: EigenLayer is the second-biggest project listed on DefiLlama, with almost $16 billion in assets locked into it, up 30% in the last month.

• The only larger project, Lido, is the one EigenLayer has been built on top of.

What's next: Folks who have earned free tokens can start claiming on May 10.

• If anyone does fly abroad to claim their tokens, please let us know.