OAK — OnChain Attack Knowledge

Worked example · 2024-20

EigenLayer Restaking Deposit Caps and the ezETH Discount Depeg — Ethereum L1 — 2024

Loss
structural — no aggregate figure is sourced. The documented price event is Renzo's ezETH falling 18.3% to about $2,642 within minutes on 2024-04-24 after the REZ token distribution plan was announced (The Block), a discount to ETH, not a premium. The earlier ~$340M liquidation figure in the findings is not confirmed by the sources reviewed and is not asserted here.
OAK Techniques observed
OAK-T14.004 (Liquid Restaking Token Pricing Manipulation / Depeg — the ezETH discount is a DEX price diverging sharply from NAV under an exit rush; the mechanism was a tokenomics-announcement-driven sell-off, not an attacker). OAK-T14.003 (Restaking Cascading Risk — retained as filed; the sources reviewed do not document a cascade through lending markets, so this is weakly supported).
Attribution
unattributed — EigenLayer protocol parameters and LRT user behaviour. No adversary.
Corrected 2026-10-11
Removed the unsourced mechanism that deposit caps created a premium-to-NAV which collapsed on cap raises, along with invented 5–15% premium figures; replaced with the sourced facts: EigenLayer temporarily uncapped LST deposits in February 2024 and removed LST caps on 2024-04-16, and ezETH depegged by a discount (−18.3%) on 2024-04-24 after the REZ airdrop announcement.
Key teaching point
A liquid restaking token's DEX price can detach from NAV in minutes when holders rush for the exit, and thin liquidity turns a tokenomics announcement into a depeg. EigenLayer's deposit caps shaped how much restaked ETH could enter, but the documented dislocation was an exit-driven discount triggered by a token-distribution announcement. Lending markets accepting LRTs as collateral should use NAV-based or time-averaged oracles and haircuts rather than spot DEX prices.

Summary

EigenLayer launched with deposit caps on its liquid-staking-token pools. In February 2024 it temporarily lifted the caps (200,000 ETH per LST had been the limit), and TVL rose to nearly $6B before the window closed (The Block, Blockworks). On 2024-04-16 the team removed all LST caps and unpaused deposits (EigenLayer blog; The Defiant), ending the initial rollout phase.

Eight days later, on 2024-04-24, Renzo's ezETH fell 18.3% to about $2,642 within minutes, with some trackers showing far lower prints, and later largely recovered. The sell-off followed Binance Labs's 2024-04-23 announcement of the REZ token distribution plan: users wanted out after learning details such as a possible Launchpool advantage for Binance stakers and concerns about the airdrop allocation (The Block). The sources reviewed do not report a liquidation total, and the earlier version of this file's claim of a premium-to-NAV that compressed when caps lifted has no source.

Timeline (UTC)

When Event OAK ref
2024-02 EigenLayer temporarily removes LST deposit caps; TVL nears $6B (cap regime context)
2024-04-16 EigenLayer removes LST deposit caps and unpauses deposits (cap regime ends for LSTs)
2024-04-23 Binance Labs announces REZ distribution plan (trigger)
2024-04-24 ezETH falls 18.3% on DEXes within minutes, then largely recovers T14.004

Public references

Discussion

This example documents the cap-removal timeline and the ezETH exit-rush depeg. It no longer claims a cap-driven scarcity premium; whether caps influenced LRT secondary pricing before April 2024 is not established by the sources reviewed.

Techniques demonstrated (2)