Blockchain security has always been defined by economic weight — the more assets securing a network, the harder it is to attack. Restaking expands this concept, allowing staked assets to secure multiple decentralized services simultaneously. This shift fundamentally transforms how we think about blockchain security while creating a market for trust.

No longer must each protocol bootstrap its own validator set from scratch. No longer must billions in staked assets sit idle, securing just one network.

Restaking has unlocked over $19B in capital for onchain security — but accessing and deploying this capital remains a multifaceted challenge, involving engineering complexities, market fragmentation, and economic design.

This is where Catalysis and Kernel step in. By combining Kernel’s robust DVN (dynamic validation network) infrastructure with Catalysis’s unified security layer, we’re creating something novel: a world where teams can build universal decentralized networks that can source security from the BNB chain, operate across multiple restaking ecosystems, and scale without friction.

Think of it as the ‘Shopify moment’ for decentralized services — where what once required months of specialized infrastructure can now be deployed in days.

To understand how we’re making this possible, let’s look at the unique capabilities each protocol brings to the table.

Introducing Catalysis Network and Kernel

Catalysis Network

Catalysis is the first true abstraction layer for shared security. It enables decentralized networks (DVNs, AVSs, BVSs) to dynamically source and rebalance security across Kernel, Eigenlayer, Symbiotic, SatLayer, and more — without requiring teams to integrate separately with each protocol.

KernelDAO

KernelDAO is a top restaking protocol, with over $2 billion total value locked and live on 10+ chains including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, and expanding further. Kernel powers off-chain validation and execution networks through its pioneering Dynamic Validation Network (DVN) architecture. Instead of DVNs needing to manage their own validator coordination and slashing mechanisms, Kernel provides an on-demand, trust-minimized network of operators who handle execution tasks reliably.

Together, we’re tackling both sides of the restaking equation:

• Catalysis aggregates and abstracts access to crypto-economic security, while
• Kernel provides the infra for efficient sourcing of security from the BNB Smart Chain.

This combination creates a powerful foundation for the next generation of decentralized services. But to truly understand its impact, we need to examine the problems teams face today.

The Challenges of Building with Shared Security

Restaking is moving us towards a future where security becomes fluid — where the same stake that secures Ethereum can also secure a zero-knowledge proving network, a decentralized sequencer, or a cross-chain bridge — essentially anything in general that requires decentralization.

Effectively, what Flashbots did to MEV, restaking protocols are doing to decentralize security — opening Pandora’s box of possibilities.

However, today, there are a bunch of hurdles stopping the restaking space from being adopted at scale by DVN builders and developers:

1. Fragmented Security Markets

Despite billions available in restaked capital, teams can’t efficiently access this security. Each restaking protocol operates as an isolated pool, forcing decentralized networks (DVNs, AVSs etc) to integrate with multiple platforms or accept limited security from a single source.

2. Infrastructure Overhead

Building a DVN requires managing complex validator networks, designing their own incentive models, slashing logic, implementing custom consensus mechanisms, and coordinating off-chain execution. Teams spend months on infrastructure instead of their core service.

3. Fractured Developer Experience

Today, the developer experience w.r.t. building decentralized networks is complex and tedious because of the absence of standard tooling for building such services.

4. Operational Complexity

Node operators must maintain separate setups for each restaking platform, leading to inefficient operations and higher costs that ultimately get passed on to DVNs.

5. Security Rebalancing

Without dynamic rebalancing capabilities, DVNs can’t optimize their security costs or protect against concentration risks across different restaking protocols.

These challenges have created a bottleneck in the ecosystem. Solving them requires rethinking how DVNs are built and deployed.

Kernel and Catalysis Partnership: What Does This Mean to DVN Development

Kernel and Catalysis are teaming up to turn DVN building into a modular and scalable process. Instead of spending months architecting validator logic, economic security, and slashing mechanisms, teams can focus purely on innovation — whether they’re building zk-coprocessors, decentralized AI protocols, data availability layers, or anything that needs decentralization in general .

The impact? More DVNs, launched faster and at lower cost.

More DVNs mean:

• Greater utility and capital efficiency for restaking capital → Stronger incentives for node operators & restakers.
• Higher decentralization → A diverse range of services, reducing reliance on monolithic networks.
• A thriving marketplace for on-chain trust → A self-reinforcing cycle where DVNs drive demand for restaking, and restaking fuels more DVNs.

The partnership between Kernel and Catalysis is a paradigm shift in how decentralized services are built and secured.

Developer Experience of Building DVNs Drastically Improves With This Partnership

By abstracting economic security allocation (Catalysis) and simplifying off-chain execution infrastructure (Kernel), this approach fundamentally redefines the DVN development lifecycle.

Here’s a quick overview of the development process:

• Design core logic → Teams focus on their unique service logic, whether it’s ZK-proving, AI inference, data availability, or anything that needs decentralization in general.
• Deploy with Catalyst-SDK → Like Cosmos SDK for blockchains, Catalyst-SDK provides production-grade modules for building robust DVNs like modules for staking, consensus and networking.
• Integrate with Kernel → Leverage Kernel’s DVN infrastructure for operator management and task execution.
• Source security → Through Catalysis, decentralized services can dynamically access security from the BSC Smart chain. Not only this, through Catalysis, projects can rebalance security from other chains like Ethereum (via Eigenlayer, Symbiotic), Bitcoin (via Babylon, Satlayer), Solana (via Jito) etc.

This modular approach means teams can launch production-ready DVNs in days rather than months, with the flexibility to scale beyond a single pool of economic security.

Use Cases that Catalysis and Kernel Enable

The combination of Kernel’s DVNs and Catalysis’ shared security abstraction opens the door for a new wave of decentralized applications.

1. Decentralized AI (dAI) Services

Distributed networks for AI model verification, inference, and federated learning. These services enable trustless AI computation while ensuring model integrity and fair reward distribution across participants validating AI tasks.

2. Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN) Networks

Networks coordinating real-world infrastructure like storage, bandwidth, and compute. Kernel and Catalysis enable efficient operator management and dynamic security allocation for these geographically distributed services.

3. Zero-Knowledge Coprocessors

Specialized networks that generate and verify zero-knowledge proofs at scale. By leveraging shared security, these services can provide cost-effective ZK computation while maintaining decentralization and economic security.

4. Decentralized Markets

Prediction markets, DEXs, and other financial services requiring trust-minimized price feeds and order matching. These decentralized services benefit from dynamic security rebalancing to maintain economic security proportional to value secured.

5. DVN Slashing Insurance

Protection against financial losses from validator slashing events. Kernel verifies slashing conditions accurately while Catalysis dynamically adjusts security across protocols to minimize systemic risks.

6. Arbitrage Bots

Trust-minimized execution of trading strategies across exchanges and chains. Catalysis provides economic security against manipulation, while Kernel validates execution fairness to prevent front-running.

7. Decentralized Points System

Secure attribution of reputation and rewards across on-chain and off-chain actions. Catalysis prevents Sybil attacks through economic security, while Kernel’s networks validate real-world interactions.

Each of these services benefits from both Kernel’s robust operator network and Catalysis’s unified security layer, enabling faster deployment and more efficient operation than previously possible.

The Path Forward: Building a Future with Thousands of DVNs

With billions in capital ready to secure the next generation of decentralized services, the missing piece has been infrastructure that makes building and scaling decentralized networks accessible to all teams.

From AI networks to ZK-coprocessors, these services will demonstrate the power of unified security and standardized infrastructure. And we at Catalysis and Kernel are enabling the next generation of builders to create and scale decentralized services.

Join us in building this future.

Important links

Catalysis Network

• Website
• Documentation
• Blogs
• Twitter

Kernel

• Website
• Technical docs
• Blogs
• Forum
• Twitter

In the rapidly evolving world of decentralization, shared security (or restaking) has emerged as a powerful mechanism to bootstrap decentralized protocols and services. With billions of dollars restaked across Shared Security Protocols demanding a return on their deposits, the critical question becomes: where does the yield come from? AVSs are the answer.

As shared security protocols grow in importance, the restaking ecosystem now faces a critical challenge: the need for more AVSs (Actively Validated Services) to sustain its growth and ensure long-term viability. How many AVSs are needed to satisfy the yield requirements on this huge pool of capital? Potentially thousands.

However, deploying and operating an AVS in the currently fragmented shared security ecosystem is technically challenging and there is no mechanism that aggregates supply and demand to enable price discovery for economic security.

Given these obstacles, how do we get to a future with thousands of AVSs? Catalysis.

At Catalysis, we believe we’re at a critical juncture in the restaking ecosystem, requiring innovation around AVS economics and developer experience to ensure a sustainable future for the entire shared security space.

Note: For the purpose of this blog, AVS refers to any decentralized off-chain compute system secured by shared security¹.

1. The Current State of the Restaking Ecosystem

The concept of restaking is becoming a cornerstone of decentralized security. As networks outsource security to shared protocols, it unlocks enormous value for both the security providers and the services utilizing that security. However, the current landscape is limited by the number of AVSs available, creating a bottleneck for the growth and sustainability of restaking protocols.

Right now, there are only a handful of AVSs that anchor this ecosystem. At the time of writing this blog, there are 19 AVSs on the Eigenlayer dashboard. Symbiotic has also announced its first cohort of 14 AVSs.

This is a start, but when we consider the scale required to secure an expansive shared security ecosystem and meet restakers’ demand for yield, it becomes clear that we will need hundreds — if not thousands — of AVSs in the near future. This growth is essential to maintain the sustainability of restaking yields that both operators and restakers depend on. Without enough AVSs, the ecosystem risks stagnation.

The good thing is, we think leveraging shared security protocols represents a compelling opportunity for most decentralized networks and could attract Web2 providers looking to offer enhanced trust assumptions on parts of the technical stack.

At Catalysis, our mission is to facilitate this growth by aggregating supply across restaking protocols, offering efficient price discovery and competition in an otherwise fragmented marketplace, and providing an unparalleled developer experience for AVSs and node operators alike.

2. The Urgent Need to Facilitate AVS Deployment

Consider the early days of Shopify: initially, only a small number of merchants (<50,000) were using the platform. However, as Shopify simplified the process of building and scaling an online store, the ecosystem grew exponentially. Today, millions of merchants use Shopify because it eliminated the friction that once made e-commerce difficult to access.

As Shopify’s founder, Tobi Lütke, puts it:

“The reason there were only 40,000 online stores was because it was hard, expensive, and everyone who tried ran into all these brick walls of complexity, which Shopify, one after another, smoothed over and made simple to do. What a lot of free-market thinkers don’t understand is that between the demand and eventual supply lies friction.”

Similarly, the restaking ecosystem is on the verge of its own “Shopify moment.” To meet the growing demand, we need a much larger number of AVSs to provide the scale necessary to support the economics (yield) on the billions of dollars in restaked assets.

Just as Shopify aggregated supply and demand for e-commerce, transforming the complex, time-consuming process of starting an online business into something accessible and straightforward, Catalysis aims to aggregate both sides of the shared security marketplace. By doing so, we will empower developers to deliver the next generation of decentralized services — thousands of them.

3. What is so special about AVSs?

AVS, or Actively Validated Service, is a term used to describe systems that require their own distributed validation mechanisms for verification. As explained by Eigenlayer, an AVS could be:

“Any system that requires its own distributed validation semantics for verification, such as sidechains, data availability layers, new virtual machines, keeper networks, oracle networks, bridges, threshold cryptography schemes, and trusted execution environments.”

What makes AVSs unique is their flexibility. They allow developers to write custom off-chain computation code that is secured by a decentralized network of node operators. This gives developers the freedom to experiment — not only with different execution environments, but also with custom consensus mechanisms tailored to their specific needs.

The flexibility of AVSs also extends beyond blockchain-specific use cases. It enables Web2 software products to decentralize certain product elements of their larger stack, adding enhanced trust assumptions that cannot be achieved in a centralized setting. The potential scope and market size of this application are enormous, and we believe this opportunity is currently not well understood by the market.

By leveraging shared security, AVS developers don’t need to bootstrap their own security infrastructure. Instead, they can tap into the security provided by larger existing decentralized networks. This unlocks the ability to build truly decentralized, permissionless systems with ease, making innovation faster and more accessible.

4. What Happens If There Aren’t Enough AVSs?

The risk is real. If the growth of AVSs stalls, the entire restaking ecosystem could face serious consequences. Without enough AVSs, restaking yields could plummet, making it less attractive for node operators and stakers. If stakers begin withdrawing their deposits, the supply of economic security shrinks, triggering a downward spiral where AVSs lack sufficient economic backing.

This could lead to a collapse in the shared security space, where the incentives no longer align, and the ecosystem becomes unsustainable.

The entire space needs to scale. A handful of AVSs simply can’t support the long-term viability of multiple restaking protocols.

The good news? Hundreds of AVSs are in development and expected to launch in the coming months. Restaking protocols within the Babylon ecosystem, like Satlayer & Pell Network, are also seeing strong interest. Experiments are underway at all levels to remove friction, and Catalysis is leading the charge.

5. Catalysis’ Vision: A Future of Thousands of AVSs

At Catalysis, we envision a future where thousands of AVSs are seamlessly operating across multiple shared security protocols. These AVSs will power critical infrastructure across decentralized AI (dAI), decentralized physical infrastructure networks (dePIN), zero-knowledge (ZK) applications, verifiable web2 SaaS and countless new use cases that crypto will unlock in the near future.

Our mission is to unlock this future by providing aggregation, abstraction and a unified developer experience to make the creation, operation, and scaling of AVSs frictionless. This is where we see the ecosystem heading, and we believe the growth of AVSs is critical to the broader adoption of decentralized technologies.

6. How Catalysis Enables This Future

Catalysis’ abstraction layer is the catalyst and driving force for this future. By simplifying the complexities of building and managing AVSs, we make it effortless for new AVSs to launch and scale across multiple restaking protocols. With the Catalysis SDK, developers can plug into any shared security platform without dealing with the nuances of each protocol’s underlying architecture.

Our goal is to guide AVS teams through the entire journey — from determining the economic security required and structuring rewards, to building AVS software ready for mainnet deployment.

This frictionless experience is what will enable the “Cambrian explosion” of AVSs, fueling the next wave of growth in decentralized services. The abstraction layer makes it possible for AVS teams to focus on building and innovating, rather than on the complexities of restaking. We empower AVS teams to focus on innovation, not infrastructure.

7. Why Should AVSs Choose Catalysis?

For AVS teams, Catalysis’ aggregation network offers unparalleled flexibility and efficiency. We allow for the creation of “partial AVSs” that can operate across multiple restaking platforms, enabling, for the first time, market-wide price discovery for economic security.

This approach — what we call a “multi-planetary” model of shared security — ensures that AVSs aren’t tied to a single protocol. Instead, they can leverage the best features of each platform, optimizing both their security and resiliency.

Catalysis also offers a flexible framework for developers, giving them the tools they need to experiment with different security configurations and find what works best for their needs. We provide the infrastructure; while AVS teams bring the innovation.

Benefits for AVSs:

1. Dynamic Rebalancing: AVSs can dynamically rebalance economic security in real-time across multiple restaking platforms, ensuring optimal performance and cost-effectiveness.
2. Native Rewards: AVSs can natively distribute rewards to restakers on any platform where economic security is sourced — eliminating the need for cross-chain transfers or bridging.
3. Enhanced Buying Power: By aggregating demand across AVSs, Catalysis enhances buying power, fostering competition among restaking protocols. This leads to better pricing for AVSs.
4. Unified Interface: AVS teams can access multiple pools of economic security through a single, unified interface, simplifying the complexity of managing multi-platform operations.
5. Robust Security: AVSs built with Catalysis are more resilient against cascading slashings and the migration of restaked assets, offering stronger protection.
6. Enhanced Developer Experience (DevEx): Our Catalyst-SDK streamlines the process of building universal, robust AVSs, saving time and reducing duplication of efforts.

8. Benefits for Node Operators

Catalysis offers substantial advantages for node operators by simplifying the management of AVS infrastructure across multiple restaking platforms. With the Catalyst-CLI tool, operators can seamlessly manage their AVS setups from a single interface, streamlining operations and reducing complexity. This unified solution eliminates the need to run separate infrastructure for each platform, instead offering a single node setup that saves both time and effort.

A key benefit of Catalysis is the significant reduction in DevOps engineering expenses. By providing a robust toolkit, Catalysis helps operators avoid building internal tooling for each new restaking platform. This not only minimizes development overhead but also ensures that node operators can scale their AVS management to handle thousands of services with minimal effort.

AVSs built using the Catalyst-SDK are highly reliable, eliminating common issues such as debugging obscure errors or handling key management problems. This robustness means operators can focus on maintaining secure and efficient infrastructure without the distraction of technical glitches.

Moreover, Catalysis empowers node operators of all sizes to participate in running AVS infrastructure, not just the larger ones. This inclusion contributes to the decentralization of the node operator set, addressing a growing problem in the restaking ecosystem.

Ultimately, Catalysis enables node operators to run a robust and scalable infrastructure, allowing them to focus on performance rather than operational burdens, making it a must-have for efficient AVS infrastructure management.

9. Benefits for Shared Security Protocols

Catalysis brings significant advantages to shared security protocols (SSPs) by aggregating demand and acting as a distribution channel, creating a more competitive and fair environment for these platforms. One of the key features Catalysis unlocks is leveling the playing field for restaking protocols, allowing them to compete on the strength and efficiency — in terms of both cost and performance — of their offerings. This also opens us opportunities for newer protocols to gain traction.

By simplifying the onboarding process for AVSs, Catalysis encourages more projects to deploy as AVSs, driving overall ecosystem growth. As more AVSs are attracted to these platforms, it creates a win-win situation where both AVS teams and SSPs benefit from increased participation.

In addition to driving adoption, Catalysis helps SSPs offer better features and more reliable economic security, making their platforms more appealing to AVSs seeking robust solutions. The influx of high-quality AVSs further enhances the robustness and value of these protocols, fostering a vibrant, competitive ecosystem for the future.

10. Why Now Is the Right Time

The timing couldn’t be better. With more than ten shared security protocols² now live and maturing, as well as liquid restaking protocols accumulating billions in deposits, the ecosystem is primed for rapid growth. These protocols are attracting ever-growing deposits from restakers, creating a dynamic that demands a corresponding increase in AVS deployments to support yield requirements.

For the first time, AVS teams are faced with an overwhelming array of choices and feature sets available across these restaking platforms, making it challenging to decide where to build.

However, the growth of the shared security ecosystem can only be sustained if we have enough AVSs to fuel it. Catalysis is here to meet that demand by providing the infrastructure necessary to drive the exponential growth of AVSs over the coming years.

11. Conclusion

The restaking ecosystem is at a pivotal moment. Without a significant increase in the number of AVSs, the long-term sustainability of shared security could be at risk. Catalysis exists to solve this challenge, providing the aggregation and abstraction layer that will enable thousands of AVSs to flourish.

By making it frictionless to build, operate, and scale AVSs, Catalysis is enabling a future where shared security becomes the backbone of a vast range of decentralized services. Now is the time to build, and Catalysis is the key to unlocking that future.

We’ll be launching our devnet in a few weeks — stay tuned!

12. References

1. Alternative Nomenclature: Actively Validated Service (AVS — Eigenlayer), Network (Symbiotic), Distributed Secure Service (DSS — Karak), Node Consensus Network (NCN — Jito), Bitcoin Validated Service (BVS — Satlayer), Decentralized Validated Service (DVS — Pell).
2. SSPs: Eigenlayer, Symbiotic, Karak, Nektar, Satlayer, Pell, Jito, Picasso, Solayer, Avail Fusion
3. LRTs: Etherfi, Puffer, Renzo, Kelp, Swell, Bedrock, Level

Thanks to krane, austin, siddharth (marlin), richard, nicholas, bede, storm, joel, sid for their thoughtful discussions and feedback.

Introduction

In the rapidly evolving landscape of blockchains, restaking or shared security has emerged as a pivotal concept. It involves borrowing economic security from larger, more secure protocols to bootstrap a new network.

The shared security space is gaining momentum with more protocols wanting to decentralize their projects by leveraging the economic security offered by shared security protocols. On the supply side, restaking protocols have a combined TVL of almost $19B. However, this space remains demand constrained due to the lack of a sufficient number of AVS networks.

Through our recent customer research, we’ve identified that the most significant hurdle for AVS network teams is the onboarding process.

Over the past few weeks, we spoke with teams building or having already built AVS networks to understand their use cases, reasons for using shared security and pain points in development. Additionally, we talked to LRT protocols and node operators to gather their insights on managing AVS networks.

The journey from deciding to build an AVS to deploying it in production is time-consuming and resource-intensive. This complexity often discourages teams, both small and large, from pursuing shared security solutions. This eventually slows down the growth and adoption of the restaking ecosystem.

Motivation

For restaking protocols to grow and thrive, the onboarding of AVS networks needs to be seamless and much easier.

However, building an AVS network is hard. Network teams spend hundreds of developer hours writing a ton of both offchain and onchain logic to build their networks. This process should be frictionless and should ideally require much less time & effort.

What does a network really want?

1. A target amount of economic security (say $500M or 10k ETH).
2. To pay a little in yield in exchange for renting shared security. Let’s say they want to pay up to X% of the token supply (say 5%) in exchange for renting shared security.
3. Flexibility to choose the best shared security protocol in terms of price & reliability. The best choice for a given AVS network may be a blend of multiple shared security protocols.
4. An onboarding process that takes no more than a week. Today, the entire process from building to deployment takes around a couple of months, especially if the team doesn’t have prior experience in restaking.

What does a network NOT want?

1. To spend weeks understanding the low-level design of available shared security protocols.
2. To experience analysis paralysis when deciding which shared security protocol to build on.
3. To facilitate offline agreements with LRTs/Operators for asset delegation.

Shared Security Abstraction

We are introducing “Shared Security Abstraction” (SSA) — a concept designed to abstract the complexities of underlying restaking protocols for AVS networks, making shared security more accessible and efficient.

A better analogy would be Chain Abstraction. Just as chain abstraction allows end users to spend their crypto assets irrespective of the chain, Shared Security Abstraction allows networks to rent economic security irrespective of the underlying shared security protocol.

This is important because there are now a variety of restaking protocols to build on, which has fragmented the developer experience for AVS network builders. They now have to spend considerable time and effort evaluating different restaking platforms, understanding their architectures, and developing on one of them.

Network builders should be able to focus on decentralizing their networks without being overwhelmed by these choices. Instead, they should concentrate on their core business logic, and Shared Security Abstraction allows them to do just that.

Shared Security Abstraction unlocks a variety of use-cases:

1. Diversified Security: It allows a network to derive security from multiple restaking protocols, not just one. Thus increasing the capital pool available to the network, potentially reducing security bootstrapping costs.
   – For example, a network can obtain 40% of its economic security from Eigenlayer, 30% from Symbiotic, and 20% from Karak and 10% from Babylon (see Image 2 below)
   – This approach also has the positive effect of load distribution, preventing the overloading of any single blockchain network.
2. Simplified Complexity: It abstracts away the complexities of the underlying shared security protocols.
3. Enhanced Liquidity Participation: It allows large restaking participants like LRTs to participate in auctions to potentially secure AVS networks across restaking protocols, bringing the off-chain deal making process onchain.
4. Reduced Over-Reliance: It shields AVS networks from over-reliance on a single restaking protocol, promoting greater resilience and flexibility.
5. Reputation Markets: It enables reputation markets to be built based on the cumulative performance of AVS networks, operators & LRTs.
6. Risk Management: Data from shared security abstraction protocols can be leveraged by risk engines to create more accurate risk-reward portfolios.

However, to fulfill the vision of Shared Security Abstraction, we first need to tackle the problem of onboarding AVS networks to the shared security ecosystem. The upcoming article discusses in detail the challenges and potential solutions to this problem.

Conclusion

At Catalysis, our goal is to simplify and streamline the entire lifecycle of an AVS network, from development to production, enabling teams to concentrate on their core business logic.

We believe that building AVS networks should be seamless and as frictionless as possible. This would drive the demand side of restaking, ultimately forming the basis of a robust shared security market.

This is the vision of Shared Security Abstraction. And, we’re just getting started. Stay tuned for what’s next.