EigenLayer, the leading restaking protocol on the Ethereum network in terms of total value locked (TVL), has formed a partnership with Ritual, a community-owned artificial intelligence (AI) network. The goal of this collaboration is to bring AI capabilities to decentralized applications (DApps) and introduce Ethereum-level restaking security on the Ritual network.
Through this partnership, Ritual plans to incorporate smart agents, AI-powered decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and autonomous media generation into DApps. The integration of EigenLayer’s technology will enhance the security of Ethereum staking on the Ritual network, creating a more decentralized and transparent AI ecosystem.
EigenLayer’s founder, Sreeram Kannan, believes that the combination of crypto-economic, AI-powered coprocessors can bring significant advancements to blockchain networks while also driving economic incentives. Kannan expressed his excitement about partnering with Ritual to bring Ethereum staking security to the emerging AI-enabled DApp space.
This collaboration comes at a time when there is growing interest in AI solutions within the crypto industry. Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, recently shared his enthusiasm for AI-powered smart contract auditing, which has the potential to address bugs and improve the technical risk associated with the Ethereum network.
Ritual’s first product, Infernet, will enable smart contracts to access AI models in a cost-efficient and native manner. This integration will lead to the development of Actively Validated Services (AVS), which will power Ritual’s infrastructure. It will also allow EigenLayer restakers with graphics processing unit (GPU) capabilities to provide decentralized inference, fine-tuning, and proving within Ritual’s on-chain economy.
Founded in 2023, Ritual consists of a network of computing devices that host, infer, and fine-tune AI models. Additionally, it provides an application programming interface (API) layer for secure accessibility to AI models and implements mechanisms to ensure computational integrity.
Niraj Pant, the co-founder of Ritual, believes that this integration will enable the creation of more efficient AI-enabled DApps.
The AI-crypto sector experienced a significant surge in interest following the fourth-quarter earnings report of GPU producer Nvidia in 2023. The report revealed a 265% year-on-year increase in revenue, leading Nvidia to become the most-traded stock on Wall Street, surpassing Tesla. As a result, the market capitalization of AI tokens increased by 11.2% within 24 hours, reaching $25.4 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The market cap of AI-based crypto tokens has doubled over the past month.
In related news, EigenLayer has become the fourth-largest restaking protocol, with a TVL nearing $7 billion.