Misha Putiatin - Staking is Dead, Long Live Staking - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2025

I want to talk about decentralized systems as always and how we help them um in their journey of decentralization. Uh symbiotic launched as a resting like a third security protocol with the uh smaller primitive of restaking at the score and uh we we've been quite successful with that. We've so far launched uh 14 networks with 45 more coming online. Uh every primitive there is starting from um bridges uh oracles, zeal processors, um fast finality gadgets, pre-confirmations, everything there is in the decentralized industry will launch or about to launch. Uh all of those protocols uh some of them were would be impossible without restaking.

Some of them will be really really inefficient and hard to launch and some of them use three staking to bootstrap their strate start starting strategy. The value proposition here is really simple like you start faster. You start with the amount of economic security that will let you actually test your traction. not holding you back, not uh like making people think twice before they deposit their funds into your like the central network or trust your oracles or like any other uh security assumption that they're on board when they trust you. Uh yeah, so like without resting it would be impossible to do in a time frames that we were able to do that.

Uh so like weeks and months versus like years. Um, symbiotic was designed from the ground up to be as flexible as possible. We learned the lessons from Poloca dot, Cosmos and like layer and every like primitive that came before us and uh we identified that the most troubling part like the most problematic part about shared security so far was that it wasn't flexible enough. you still needed to develop a lot of uh a lot of additional software or even adapt your consensus model or like your core models to accommodate design that was rigid. So it kind of defeats the like the defeated purpose right like if you need to develop a lot if you need to like adapt or even like worsen your value proposition it doesn't make any sense for people to use that.

So for symbiotic we decided like to build this system that's really flexible which was kind of hard. We started research in 2023 and uh throughout this journey we sometimes thought it was impossible because again like how do you build a system that's permissionless at its core. So like no uh multi-seek to change stuff, no like levers when you can like just change the modes of uh work and change the like the actual algorithms of working on the fly. Everything is like there like the factories, the vaults, everything is uh deployed in a permissionless manner. We can't actually stop it or like change it like if we want to.

Uh so yeah uh it took a lot a lot of time to create a flexible yet permissionless system and uh throughout this journey we we tried to expand the definition of like what restaking and shared security actually is. We did thousands of c customer development interviews. uh we successfully launched the first core version like in 20 like in early 2025 and now it's time to expand. We've been working on this for the last 6 months. Uh so the basic concept stays the same.

Um the like the network you have the network you have operators operating it. So like the same system as we have in depot. However, the applications that we received for the protocols are actually like surprised us in a lot of ways and to complement that from the narrative perspective, we are expanding it. So, it's not about shared security anymore. It's not only about risk takingaking anymore.

Uh you can actually do with like the the system, the flexible system and modular system that we designed. people can actually do a lot more and builders can actually utilize it in the ways that we're like was hoping for when we started but like we were really excited to see coming close to fruition. So the overall structure is the same uh for listeners at home uh you have operators, you have balls and you have networks. That's like the simplified version of what we do. operators actually launch the software that is decentralized and needs the coordination.

Uh vault provides stake and allocates and delegates the stake to operators for their economic security and networks decide when we who they want to be operating their network and with what conditions. Um yeah, the new uh yeah core that's uh the the new uh primitives that we see coming online some of them are like maybe a few weeks away some of them are actually really here uh is uh yeah we expand the narrative to universal staking because that's what it is we have pure POS staking so no restaking no outside tokens People are really excited about using our core for that like thing that it was designed for just launching faster having like a a really big and flexible and modular framework for them to use for generalized pure pure staking. The next case that was kind of like in the air like restaking is is basically insurance. So you have this capital lying around. It's uh designed to safeguard you against the eventuality that might never come and the probability of this like insurance incident coming should be really low otherwise like you'll have high yields.

But and like the same capital is used for multiple eventualities because like if insurance companies had a uh had to like stake or like deposit or have reserves for every insurance incidents ever possible that would not be like feasible for this business to exist. Uncolateralized lending is the same but like with more security assumptions. We have like a few protocols launching in May. I think uh with that uh defy staking like so no operators at all I'm going to be going through like better to go through here. So the same overall structure is the same right uh the core is the same you just don't use the the like every model there is module there is uh network is just like there is one network there might be multiple volts there might be multiple operators but you're still using the core that is uh battle tested and launch like dozens of networks right now uh insurance is the same but you have n you don't have networks You still have operators.

Operators in this uh regard might be the agents that provide or like the insurance companies that are underwriting the depth. uh and insurance with the network is uh like might be a trench uh that has like some predeter predetermined conditions and like just the logic of like who can slash and who can like operate this stake unc land in the same you connect yourself to multiple trenches and like if there like gets yield and in unlike unlikely if you like score properly uh scenario of actual like slashing where the funds are distributed you get like slashed. Uh DeFi is taking same basic structure. Uh and here like the the interesting part comes in. We have burners uh and like a lot of other contracts resolvers and uh uh price oracle services already available for POSOS and already available for staking.

So it can they can be one to one utilized for defy staking. uh same risk profiles maybe no slashing if there's slashing is that the the contract can just not destroy funds but can distribute to them yeah like this is the another part that people are really excited about uh if I'm using like the the symbiotic for not restaking and not shared security but like POS how do like do I need to like write my own uh governance or do can I use offtheshelf of components as well. Yeah, that's like the power of restaking because you can uh use it for staking, use it for governance and then use it for uh other activities say order flow, fast finality, bridging and everything else on top of it. Uh you have the infrastructure available from day one. Yeah.

And uh I I left the last for uh the juiciest part for for the last slides. uh we were like thinking uh about uh the problems for a general network say L2s oracles uh liquidity managers and uh like the access everything else and uh we identified that the most uh the part that's not covered the most is like fractured liquidity that's why we like that that's why we deployed symbiotic initially only on Ethereum because that was the the best you and still is in my view the best liquidity layer there is. So we deployed it there and we're kind of hesitant deploying the core contracts every like any on any other chains because like why would you do that like you can transport your assets to Ethereum you're going to be fine or you can like use like other bridging primitives uh but like the last six months we were doing uh a lot of research and how do we actually can make this a feature not not a bug. Uh yeah and like the the problem that we got everywhere on that is verifiability. If you have stake on in on on multiple sources if you want to use liquidity from like any blockchain that there is the problem is that like you can't verify it in a really in any like you can't settle in any predictable manner.

You you need to use approve authority notes. you need to be like on board a lot of assumptions and consensus is like for of the network. It's kind of the important part like you don't want to like play around with security assumptions too much. So yeah now uh we are working and uh we'll be releasing the most exciting part about our expansion. Uh it's basically every network coming to symbiotic will be uh verifiable on any blockchain.

That's the goal. Uh what verifiably what ver thank you. What verifiability will unlock is uh well provable settlement and provable stake available and liquidity available for on any blockchain anywhere. So every bridge that launches on symbiotic will will have native uh native settlement on any blockchain. Any attestation network will yeah will have like multi- settlement support fast finality interop like what that means is that like everything that launches using on any network or on any chain immediately will be connected to everything else.

So L1 chains are not going to be siloed anymore. They will have like what like amounts to a native bridge immediately. Bridges that are using like intense everything that's built on top will have like the settlement layer to do transactions in a way that's verifiable on every chain. Don't have to deploy there for that. But like that's that's going to be a native support.

Uh again with our mission just ever expanding uh the next set next wave for protocols we don't have like blind spots anymore like now you can actually launch anything with us and uh yeah super excited that that