Symbiotic

Symbiotic is a permissionless collateral-markets protocol where vaults connect collateral to networks and the operators performing their infrastructure work. A depositor chooses a particular vault's token, curator, epoch, Delegator and Slasher rather than entering one protocol-wide restaking pool.

Single-asset vaults with epoch-bound withdrawals

Each vault holds one collateral token, issues vault shares and uses Delegator and Slasher modules. Collateral remains in the vault while delegated and exits only after a completed withdrawal or an executed slash, so a multi-asset position uses several vaults.

A withdrawal request remains slashable through the end of the next vault epoch. Longer epochs give networks more time to establish and execute valid penalties, but extend the wait before a requested withdrawal is claimable.

Curators set collateral's operator and network reach

The vault's Delegator converts active collateral into effective stake using operator opt-ins, network limits and, where applicable, curator-set limits or shares. Networks separately choose active operators and define their validator, voting, liveness and dispute rules through middleware.

Network Restake and Full Restake Delegators can spread a vault across several networks and operators. Operator Specific and Operator Network Specific forms narrow that exposure to one operator, or one operator and one network, making the degree of capital reuse visible in the vault design.

Network evidence and the vault's slashing choice

Network middleware, not the vault, identifies a fault and submits a penalty request with the operator, subnetwork and capture time. The Slasher limits penalties by the captured guarantee and requires the capture to be no more than one vault epoch old.

A vault can have no slashing, immediate execution or a VetoSlasher with a resolver review window. Its Burner then determines whether penalized collateral is burned, redistributed, sent to a treasury or insurance pool, or passed to custom logic.

Vault-led collateral policy beside EigenLayer

A multi-network vault can improve collateral reuse, but a penalty from one network can reduce the backing still available to another. A single-network, single-operator vault gives stronger isolation at the cost of that reuse.

EigenLayer instead has a restaker delegate to one operator, which assigns Unique Stake to AVS Operator Sets. Symbiotic is the more vault-led choice for someone weighing a curator's collateral policy, operator mix, network mix and epoch length together.