In November of last year, Google Cloud was one of the testnet participants for EigenLayer.
The restaking protocol and its ecosystem have reached a significant milestone with the debut of Google Cloud's EigenLayer mainnet node operator.
The company's EigenLayer mainnet operator on X (formerly Twitter) has successfully launched, according to Sam Padilla, Web3 product manager and node operator at Google Cloud.
This action comes after Google Cloud and more than 65 other operators and lone stakers participated in EigenLayer's "Operator Working Group" in the past.
In June, stakers may begin using EigenLayer, a restaking protocol that permits ether (ETH) to be staked on several platforms concurrently. But up until now, operators—who improve security and let stakeholders assign assets—have only been available on the testnet. The mainnet operator for Google Cloud has launched, which is a significant step in the direction of EigenLayer's complete implementation.
Since the establishment of its blockchain division in January 2022, Google Cloud's presence in the Web3 domain has been gradually expanding under the direction of Shivakumar Venkataraman, a technical vice president at Google under Alphabet Inc. The company has started a number of projects, such as the Blockchain Node Engine, a web3 startup program, and collaborations with LayerZero and Polygon protocols.
There has been some debate over the tech giant's involvement in EigenLayer; some see the existence of a major cloud computing service as a possible danger to decentralization. However, a wide spectrum of participants—from lone stakeholder to major institutions—are permitted to register as permissionless operators on EigenLayer.
The goal of EigenLayer, a protocol driven by Ethereum's programmable trust, is to promote open innovation as it grows and draws in additional operators and stakeholders. An essential turning point in this process has been reached with the successful introduction of Google Cloud's mainnet operator, which has opened the door for more users to embrace and expand the EigenLayer ecosystem.
April 2024, Cryptoniteuae