Renzo Ventures into Solana with 'ezSOL' as Restaking Gathers Momentum

Renzo, a prominent player in Ethereum’s restaking ecosystem known for projects like EigenLayer and Symbiotic, has announced its entry into the Solana space with a new liquid staking token named ezSOL. This development comes as restaking—an approach to securing new protocols and applications without additional validator networks—gains traction on the Solana blockchain.

Jito Labs, which is working on a restaking platform for Solana, has not yet launched its restaking protocol on the mainnet. However, the anticipation surrounding this new opportunity is already drawing interest from potential launch partners. Renzo, which has made a name for itself with Ethereum-based restaking solutions, will be introducing ezSOL, a SOL derivative token. ezSOL will provide holders with exposure to Jito's yield-generating infrastructure and the additional tokens produced through staking and restaking.

This move marks a shift for Renzo, which has been a key player in Ethereum's restaking landscape with its ezETH token. ezETH allows users to restake ETH or ETH liquid staking tokens with blockchain applications, offering economic security and interest generation. Similarly, ezSOL will operate within Jito’s restaking framework, though with some differing terminologies. EigenLayer refers to secured blockchain apps as “actively validated services” (AVSs), while Jito uses the term Node Consensus Networks (NCNs).

Lucas Kozinski, a founding contributor of Renzo, predicts that restaking could become a major segment in DeFi, akin to the growth of liquid staking. He emphasized the complexity of restaking infrastructure, which is often overlooked.

How ezSOL Functions

Renzo's ezSOL will be closely associated with Jito’s staking token, jitoSOL. Solana users who deposit SOL into Renzo will receive ezSOL in return. Renzo will then stake the SOL with Jito to acquire jitoSOL, benefiting from both MEV rewards and the native yield of Solana. This jitoSOL will subsequently be restaked with NCNs.

Despite similarities to Renzo's Ethereum-based restaking models, adapting to Solana's distinct architecture and programming language presents challenges. To address this, Renzo has enlisted Rust engineers to develop the smart contracts for ezSOL. These contracts will integrate restaking value into ezSOL's price, with the goal of having ezSOL trade slightly above SOL, similar to jitoSOL.

The cultural differences between Solana and Ethereum pose another challenge. Each blockchain has its own community, and past attempts by Ethereum projects to penetrate the Solana ecosystem, such as Lido’s, have faced difficulties.

Nevertheless, Renzo is optimistic about its prospects on Solana. The team believes in its alignment with Jito's culture and sees potential for growth by leveraging its Ethereum expertise. Kozinski highlighted that while the two ecosystems have their distinct characteristics, Renzo aims to expand its user base and apply its experience gained from working on EigenLayer.

“Ethereum users might be interested in Solana, and Solana users might explore Ethereum. However, the larger objective is to grow the Renzo user base and integrate the knowledge we’ve developed over the past year,” Kozinski said.