EigenLayer (EIGEN) has seen a 9% price surge in the past 24 hours, despite ongoing market volatility. This uptick comes amid an investigation into a potentially unauthorized $5.5 million EIGEN token sale that may have violated lock-up agreements for employees and early investors.

The EigenLayer team is currently investigating a wallet that transferred approximately 1.67 million EIGEN tokens, valued at $5.5 million. The transaction, allegedly conducted through MetaMask, could breach EigenLayer’s one-year lockup arrangement, which prohibits current and former employees and early investors from transferring or staking EIGEN tokens before September 2025.

Arkham Intelligence identified the suspicious wallet, which received funding from EigenLayer’s multi-signature Gnosis Safe. This has raised questions about the organization’s internal controls and security measures. The EigenLayer team is working to determine if the incident involved a sale by an employee, former employee, or early investor.

In a community update, EigenLayer explained that the suspicious sale resulted from a single security breach. An attacker hacked an investor’s email containing token transfer instructions, subsequently moving 1,673,645 EIGEN tokens to another account and selling them through a decentralized swap platform. The stolen funds were then converted to stablecoins and transferred to centralized exchanges.

EigenLayer has contacted relevant platforms and law enforcement, with some funds already frozen. The team emphasized that the broader ecosystem remains secure, with no known vulnerabilities in the protocol or token contracts.

This investigation follows Tron founder Justin Sun’s recent sale of 5.37 million EIGEN tokens, netting approximately $21 million in profit. Sun’s decision to sell most of his tokens shortly after the October 1st token unlocking event created additional selling pressure and price fluctuations.

Despite these challenges, EIGEN has rebounded with a 9% price increase over the past 24 hours. Investors appear to be weighing the long-term potential of EigenLayer’s protocol, which remains a pioneering solution in Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem.

Since its October 1 unlocking event, the token has experienced increased volatility, initially dropping 23% from recent highs. However, on-chain data suggests some investors are accumulating EIGEN tokens, betting on future growth. For instance, one whale purchased over 31,000 EIGEN tokens following the sell-off, indicating confidence in the protocol’s prospects.

EigenLayer has quickly established itself as a major player in Ethereum’s DeFi landscape with its innovative “restaking” model, allowing users to reuse staked ETH to secure decentralized applications. As of early October, the protocol’s total value locked (TVL) stands at $10.8 billion, ranking it among the top three DeFi platforms alongside Lido and Aave.