Symbiotic Raises $29 Million to Launch Universal Staking Framework

Event Background

Staking has become the dominant standard in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchains, with over 33.8 million ETH (approximately 28.36% of total supply) staked as of February 2025. However, traditional staking solutions are often limited to a specific network or asset, resulting in suboptimal capital efficiency. Symbiotic aims to solve this problem, with the goal of building an economic coordination layer that allows any combination of assets to be used to secure networks, from layer 1 (L1) to layer 2 (L2) blockchains, and even decentralized applications (dApps).

Symbiotic previously made headlines when it raised $5.8 million in a seed round in 2024, backed by Paradigm and cyber•Fund, a fund founded by the co-founder of Lido Finance. Within 24 hours of its launch in June 2024, the protocol reached $242.85 million in total value locked (TVL), demonstrating strong community traction. With its latest Series A funding round, Symbiotic is accelerating its ambitions to scale, integrate with more networks, and compete directly with restaking protocols like EigenLayer.

Universal Staking Framework: A Breakthrough in Blockchain Security

Symbiotic's Universal Staking Framework is designed as a modular solution, allowing protocols to customize their security model to their specific needs without rebuilding their infrastructure.

Symbiotic is emerging as a formidable competitor to EigenLayer, the leading restaking protocol with a TVL that peaked at $20 billion. With a current TVL of around $825 million, Symbiotic ranks third among restaking protocols, but its multi-asset support and superior flexibility could help it close the gap. Backing from big names like Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures, along with participation from leading projects like Hyperlane and Ethena, shows strong belief in Symbiotic’s vision.

“We have created a modular framework that allows protocols to evolve their security model over time while effectively coordinating risk. This empowers protocols at every stage of their lifecycle to evolve without rebuilding infrastructure,” said Misha Putiatin, co-founder of Symbiotic.

The event comes as the cryptocurrency market is expected to reach a market capitalization of $3.9 trillion by 2024, up 127% year-on-year. Growing interest in infrastructure initiatives like staking and restaking, coupled with positive factors like the election of Donald Trump (who is seen as crypto-friendly), is giving momentum to projects like Symbiotic.

Conclusion and evaluation

cross-chain integration. The protocol aims to scale from 14 to 35 networks, while implementing slashing protection mechanisms and advanced risk modeling. These moves will not only help Symbiotic solidify its position in the restaking space, but will also help shape the future of blockchain infrastructure.

In the long term, the Universal Staking Framework has the potential to become the “Uniswap of shared security” – a neutral, permissionless, and flexible platform that serves all security needs in the decentralized ecosystem. If Symbiotic continues to maintain its momentum of growth and innovation, the protocol could play a central role in expanding economic interoperability between blockchains, thereby driving the development of DeFi, decentralized AI, and cross-chain applications.