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This guidebook’s goal is to educate our AVSs on incentives. We will continue to update it over time with new FAQs and impacts.

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What is this change?

A proposed update to EigenLayer’s new incentives program marks a step forward in the evolution of the EigenLayer protocol and ecosystem. These changes may impact how AVSs attract stake over time. This guidebook is for AVS builders to understand how the Incentives Committee and potential changes to incentive policy may help in bootstrapping or building their apps and protocols.

Why this change?

A one-size-fits-all approach limits optionality and speed for iterating on incentives as the ecosystem evolves. With the implementation of ELIP-12, the Protocol Council and Incentives Committee will be able to promote the long-term viability and growth of the protocol by setting emissions policy to:

1. Direct rewards to real activity. EigenLayer’s maturing AVS ecosystem—with teams like ETHGas, Infura's DIN, LayerZero, and CAP hitting mainnet with slashable or redistributable stake enabled—needs capital backing to scale. Rewards should flow to services attracting productive stake and emissions may be reduced to idle capital that does not secure AVSs.
2. Reduce overall emissions. Work together to ensure emissions are set at the right level
3. Focus on quality over quantity. Concentrate incentives on a smaller number of high-quality participants that drive network security and usage, rather than spreading rewards broadly to idle stake.
4. Enable thoughtful discretion. Adapt quickly and avoid blanket policies that can be gamed or exploited.
5. Introduce a fee model for EigenLayer and EigenCloud: Propose a 20% fee on AVS rewards.

When will this change go live?

ELIP-12 was recently introduced on the Forum.There will be no changes to EIGEN rewards and emissions until the Protocol Council approves the ELIP and implements the onchain changes needed to create the Incentives Council and authorize it to allocate emissions. After implementation, the newly established Incentives Committee may begin to propose changes focused on incentivizing productive use of stake and rewarding live AVSs while evaluating further improvements to incentives and the economics of EigenCloud. These changes will be announced on the Incentives Council Forum page.

How can AVSs prepare for this change?

If you are a new AVS Builder:

This is a unique opportunity for new builders to build their service on EigenLayer. This new era for incentives will benefit real builders to power their applications. You can read more about slashing and redistribution here.

Get Started Building Here → docs.eigencloud.xyz/eigenlayer/concepts/eigenlayer-overview

If you are an in-development AVS Builder:

Continue making meaningful progress on your product roadmap. As you go live on testnet and mainnet, review Incentives Committee policy to understand which requirements may qualify your AVS for token incentives.