Why use this method?

Opting-in validators through the mev-commit AVS is ideal for validators that are already natively restaked, or wish to natively restake through Eigenlayer.

This method of opt-in is capital efficient in that a validator’s 32 ETH already staked with the beacon chain can be reused as collateral for opting-in to mev-commit. Further, that beacon chain ETH can be restaked towards other protocols.

Prerequisites

If you plan to bulk opt-in a large number of validator pubkeys, check out the Eigenlayer Operator Registration guide.

Individual validator entities represented by a pod owner must delegate their natively restaked ETH to an Operator that’s registered with the mev-commit AVS. See how to delegate here.

For Holesky, already registered operators can be found on the mev-commit AVS Eigenlayer dashboard. Mainnet link coming soon. If your currently delegated operator is not registered with mev-commit, you have the option to change your delegation.

Operators serve the purpose of (optionally) being able to register natively restaked validator pubkeys with the mev-commit AVS. Only the operator that a validator specifically delegates to, and a validator’s pod owner, are given validator pubkey registration permissions.

If an Operator is registering pubkeys on behalf of validators, it’s expected that the Operator manages those validators itself, or represents the validators to an extent that the Operator can realistically attest to the validator following the rules of mev-commit (staking-as-a-service providers for example). This trustful relationship between validators and their delegated Operator piggybacks off already agreed upon trust assumptions with eigenlayer delegation.

Pubkey Registration

Following operator delegation, each validator pubkey must be registered with the mev-commit AVS from the delegated operator’s account, or from the pod owner account. This action confirms a validator’s attestation to follow the relay selection rule mentioned in the Validator Guide.

Pubkey registration is facilitated through the validator dashboard interface to the MevCommitAVS.registerValidatorsByPodOwners function.

The connected metamask account (who is invoking the pubkey registration transaction) must be the delegated operator, or pod owner, of the validator pubkeys that are being registered.