Symbiotic

Symbiotic is a permissionless restaking protocol of enshrined principles that enables protocol participants to flexibly form trust-minimized shared security agreements. Participants of the Symbiotic protocol economy include node operators, decentralized protocols, LRTs/vaults and providers of economic security (restakers).

Symbiotic is a security coordination layer enabling builders to fully control and continuously adapt their own restaking implementation in a permissionless manner to service any possible decentralized infrastructure use case and its requirements. This enables the Symbiotic protocol to help scale decentralized networks safely, transparently, and in a capital-efficient way.

Components of Symbiotic Protocol

Collateral (aka stake, commitments,…)

The security layer of Symbiotic. Collateral is an abstraction used to represent underlying onchain assets, which are chain- and asset-agnostic in Symbiotic. Collateral in Symbiotic can encompass ERC20 tokens, withdrawal credentials of Ethereum validators, or other onchain assets such as LP positions, without limitations regarding which blockchains the positions are held on.

Vaults (aka operator staking pools, liquid (re)staking protocols,…)

The (re)staking layer of Symbiotic. Delegation of collateral to operators across networks is handled by vaults that can be curated in a custom manner (e.g. by liquid (re)staking providers such as Lido or institutional holders) or through delegations to operator-specific vaults.

Operators (aka validators, sequencers, guardians, keepers,…)

Operators in Symbiotic are defined as entities running infrastructure for networks. In Proof-of-Stake, successful staking providers have established a brand identity and operate across networks. The Symbiotic protocol creates a registry of operators storing information about their history and enabling them to opt-in to networks and receive economic backing from restakers through vaults.

Resolvers (aka slashing committees, proving mechanisms, dispute resolution frameworks,…)

Resolvers are entities or contracts that are tasked to pass or veto slashing penalties incurred by operators on networks they are providing services to. They are agreed upon by vaults - representing providers of economic security - and the networks they provide security for.

Networks (aka appchains, rollups, AVSs,…)

Networks in Symbiotic are defined as protocols that require a distributed set of node operators to provide trust-minimized services, such as - among others - decentralized sequencing of transactions, coming to consensus about offchain data and bringing it onchain (oracles), automating specific protocol functions (keepers), etc.

Source: Symbiotic Documentation