EigenLayer and Ritual collaborate for AI-powered DApps

EigenLayer, the largest restaking protocol on the Ethereum blockchain in terms of total value locked (TVL), has formed a partnership with Ritual, a community-owned artificial intelligence (AI) network. The collaboration aims to bring AI capabilities to decentralized applications (DApps) and enhance the security of the Ritual network through Ethereum-level restaking. This includes the development of smart agents, AI-powered decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, and autonomous media generation.

According to EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan, the addition of crypto-economic, AI-powered coprocessors can introduce new functionality to blockchain networks while also providing economic incentives. Kannan emphasized the importance of bringing Ethereum staking security to the nascent AI space and creating a more decentralized and transparent AI ecosystem.

The partnership comes at a time when there is increased interest in AI solutions within the crypto industry. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently expressed enthusiasm for AI-powered smart contract auditing, which has the potential to fix code bugs, the biggest technical risk to the Ethereum network.

Ritual’s first product, called Infernet, will be the first to enable smart contracts to access AI models in a cost-efficient and native manner. The integration of EigenLayer into Ritual’s infrastructure will enable the development of Actively Validated Services (AVS) to support decentralized inference, fine-tuning, and proving. This will be powered by EigenLayer restakers with graphics processing unit (GPU) capabilities.

Ritual, founded in 2023, operates a network of computing devices for hosting and fine-tuning AI models. It also provides an API layer for easy access to AI models and security mechanisms to ensure computational integrity.

Niraj Pant, co-founder of Ritual, believes that this integration will enable more efficient AI-enabled DApps. By harnessing the native security and capital of Ethereum, the partnership aims to create smarter AI-enabled DApps on the Ritual network.

The AI-crypto sector experienced a significant surge in interest after GPU producer Nvidia reported a 265% year-on-year increase in revenue in its fourth-quarter earnings report for 2023. This caused Nvidia to surpass Tesla as the most-traded stock on Wall Street in the preceding 30 trading sessions leading up to February 22. Following the earnings results, the market capitalization of AI tokens rose by 11.2% in the 24 hours leading up to 1:30 pm CET on February 22, reaching $25.4 billion. AI-based crypto tokens have doubled in market capitalization in the past month.