Liquid restaking token platform Inception to sunset operations after struggling to find ‘product market fit’

The Block

Jul 12, 2025 04:36:57

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The liquid restaking token platform Inception has shut down its services after struggling to find a "product market fit."

Inception was a Layer 2 platform compatible with the Ethereum restaking protocols EigenLayer and Symbiotic. It developed liquid restaking infrastructure that sought to improve liquidity and yield on restaked assets. Particularly, Inception aimed to tackle EigenLayer's liquidity locking issue by allowing users to restake stETH, rETH, or cbETH using liquid restaking tokens (LRTs), allowing them to be used across different networks to further boost rewards.

"Over the past two years, we launched over 15 LRTs, expanded across ecosystems and chains, integrated with 60+ DeFi protocols, and underwent 8+ audits for the security and quality of what we built," the Inception team wrote Friday on X. "We aimed to create a decentralized, permissionless, and curator-led protocol that was aligned with the Ethereum ethos. But despite the progress, Inception did not find product market fit. Apart from this, the lack of liquid rewards in shared security made the path forward unsustainable for the protocol."

User funds remain safe and withdrawals are fully functional, though the team recommends individuals promptly retrieve their deposited assets, the social media post continued.

Inception's closure comes just days after Eigen Labs, the core developer behind EigenLayer, laid off 25% of its workforce, or about 29 employees, on July 9 to focus on its decentralized cloud platform EigenCloud.

The web3-focused venture firm a16z crypto also purchased $70 million worth of EIGEN tokens, EigenLayer's native asset, to support EigenCloud's development in mid-June. A16z crypto previously led Eigen Labs' $100 million Series B raise in early 2024. The EIGEN token traded at $1.42 as of publication, increasing over 10% and bringing in $144.8 million in trading volume in the past 24 hours.

In January, Inception raised $3.5 million in seed funding with participation from CSP DAO, Tagus Labs, Londonreal Ventures, DSRV, Metazero, and other investors.

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