Witness Chain Soars Past $5B In Delegated ETH Amid Polygon DePIN Push

Witness Chain, a proof system for decentralized physical infrastructure (DePIN) networks, has attracted more than $5 billion worth of delegated stake from EigenLayer restakers.

Witness Chain announced the milestone via tweet on April 29. With the project now secured by 1.82 million ETH worth $5.24 billion, Witness Chain ranks as the third largest Actively Validated Service (AVS) on EigenLayer behind Eigen DA with $7.79 billion and Eoracle with $5.36 billion, according to Staking Rewards.

“Thanks to our wonderful community, we’ve surpassed $5B+ in restaked ETH,“ Witness Chain tweeted. “Big hug to all 16,677 stakers, 53 operators, and LRTs for embarking on this journey to unify DePIN economies.”

Witness Chain is one of nine AVSs that are currently live on EigenLayer. EigenLayer, the pioneering Ethereum restaking protocol, allows Ethereum stakers to secure third-party AVSs to earn additional yield on top of staking rewards.

DePIN Ecosystem

According to Ankr, a blockchain infrastructure provider and Witness Chain node operator, Witness Chain serves to unify the siloed DePIN economy.

“Through Witness Chain, a shared economy of integrated physical assets is unlocked, facilitating the exchange of resources like computing power, communication, energy, [and] storage,” Ankr said. “Witness Chain enables DePIN projects to share info about their physical locations, network capabilities, and more. This will allow dePINs to connect with each other, establishing an end-to-end supply chain of decentralized infrastructure.”

Witness Chain provides “Watchtower” nodes that function as independent auditors for DePIN networks.

The project offers several key services including Proof of Diligence — which verifies that Layer 2 transactions are executed correctly, Proof of Location — which verifies the physical location of DePIN infrastructure, Proof of Bandwidth — which verifies the network bandwidth available to DePIN projects, and a DePIN “Coordination Layer.”

Ankr said Witness Chain’s architecture enables the development of new applications on top of the shared DePIN ecosystem.

“By enabling DePIN projects to share information like location and capacity, watchtowers help create an interconnected ecosystem,” Ankr said. “Once two physically separated pieces of infrastructure recognize each other’s locations and can ensure enough connectivity, they can communicate with each other to exchange value, drive demand, enhance reliability, and reduce redundancy.”

Polygon’s DePIN push

Witness Chain was built using Polygon’s Chain Development Kit (CDK) and is among a growing list of Polygon-based DePIN projects enjoying significant growth.

On April 25, Dimo, a Polygon-based DePIN project allowing vehicle owners to collect and monetize data from their vehicles, celebrated that it had onboarded 80,000 vehicles within its network.

On April 30 and May 1, PowerPod, a Polygon-based DePIN network connecting electric vehicles, charging stations, and energy storage, attended the Mobility Live ME event in Abu Dhabi.