Skip to content

October 4, 2026

SearchAbout
CRYPTO·COINBEAT

Journalism for the digital-asset economy

Ratings / Yield & Lending

Best Liquid Restaking Protocols

LRTs ranked on real slashing exposure, who picks the operators, and how much of the yield is actually yield.

8 services ratedLast verified August 18, 2026Methodology

What the score is made of

Weights total 100% · how each axis is recorded ↓
Slashing exposure
35%
How much additional slashing risk the token takes on, and who decides that.
Operator selection
25%
How operators and services are chosen, and whether the process is transparent.
Exit design
20%
Withdrawal queues, redemption mechanics and observed peg behaviour.
Yield quality
20%
Share of the return that is durable protocol revenue rather than points or emissions.

The table at a glance

8 rated · top score 8.5 · tap a row for the full entry

  1. 01ether.fiThe most complete restaking product with the clearest disclosures8.5
  2. 02Puffer FinanceUsers who want anti-slashing tooling built into the design8.1
  3. 03RenzoCross-chain restaking exposure7.7
  4. 04SwellUsers who want staking and restaking from one provider7.7
  5. 05MellowCurated vaults with explicitly stated risk mandates7.6
  6. 06EigenpieIsolating restaking exposure to a single LST7.4
  7. 07BedrockRestaking exposure beyond Ethereum7.3
  8. 08Kelp DAONobody yet — not until the rsETH backing is restored and the bridge design is replaced5.1
Editor’s pickRank 01

ether.fi

The most complete restaking product with the clearest disclosures

The largest liquid restaking protocol, and the one that has done most to document what its depositors are actually exposed to. Native restaking with user-held keys is a genuine structural advantage over the wrapper designs.

In its favour

  • Native restaking design where stakers retain key control
  • Clearest published exposure and operator disclosures in the category
  • Deepest liquidity among liquid restaking tokens

Against it

  • Product surface has expanded quickly into cards and payments
  • Slashing regimes securing the position are still maturing
  • Launched2023
  • ModelNative restaking
  • ChainEthereum
Score8.5

The weighted mean of the 4 axes below — each read from the fact printed beside it.

Strongest
Operator selection8.6
Weakest
Yield quality8.2

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
8.4
Publishes the services its stake secures and the operators behind them; slashing on those services is still being phased in, which the protocol discloses. No ether.fi system was compromised in the 2026 restaking incidents, and in July 2026 it published an externally audited hardening of its cross-chain transfers, followed by a separate token that splits plain staking from restaking exposure.
Operator selection
8.6
Operators are admitted under published criteria with delegations visible on-chain; the native design leaves stakers holding validator key control.
Exit design
8.6
Withdrawals live with a published queue covering both the staking and restaking layers; no sustained discount on record.
Yield quality
8.2
Yield combines base staking rewards with a points programme; fee income paid by secured services is small relative to deposits, which the protocol discloses.

Read the full ether.fi review →

The rest of the table

02

Puffer Finance

Users who want anti-slashing tooling built into the design

Builds anti-slashing hardware protections into the validator design and lowers the bond required to run one, which is a real technical contribution rather than a marketing angle. It is also younger and thinner than the leaders.

In its favour

  • Anti-slashing protections built into validator design
  • Lower bonding requirement widens the operator set
  • Serious engineering with published specifications

Against it

  • Shorter operating history than the category leaders
  • Liquidity is modest, which matters in an exit
  • Launched2024
  • ModelNative restaking with slashing protection
  • ChainEthereum

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
8.4
Publishes secured-service exposure; the validator design adds hardware-enforced anti-slashing protection, with the specification published.
Operator selection
8.2
Operators post a reduced bond under published requirements, which widens the set relative to standard native staking.
Exit design
8.0
Withdrawals live with a published queue; on-chain liquidity is modest, which lengthens exit at size.
Yield quality
7.6
Yield is staking rewards plus incentives; secured-service fee income is small and disclosed as such.

Full Puffer Finance review →

Score8.1
03

Renzo

Cross-chain restaking exposure

Widest multi-chain footprint in the category, which is useful and was also the source of its most instructive incident: an April 2024 depeg on Uniswap caused by thin secondary liquidity rather than any protocol failure. The lesson about exit design stuck.

In its favour

  • Broadest multi-chain availability among LRTs
  • Strong integration base across L2 ecosystems
  • Recovered its peg and continued operating after the 2024 event

Against it

  • Suffered a significant secondary-market depeg in April 2024
  • Cross-chain deployments multiply the surfaces to trust
  • Launched2023
  • ModelMulti-chain LRT
  • ChainEthereum and L2s

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
7.8
Publishes secured-service exposure; on 24 April 2024 ezETH traded down to about $688 on Uniswap after the season-one airdrop ended — a secondary-market liquidity event rather than a protocol failure — and the peg recovered within hours.
Operator selection
7.6
Operators are selected by the protocol under published criteria, with delegations recorded on-chain.
Exit design
7.4
Withdrawals live; the 2024 event demonstrated that thin secondary liquidity, not the redemption queue, sets the exit price — the drop liquidated leveraged holders on Gearbox and Morpho.
Yield quality
7.8
Yield is staking rewards plus points and incentives; fee income from secured services is small.

Full Renzo review →

Score7.7
04

Swell

Users who want staking and restaking from one provider

Runs both a liquid staking token and a restaking token with a shared operator stack, which simplifies the decision for users who want one relationship. Adoption sits mid-table and so does everything else.

In its favour

  • Single provider for both staking and restaking
  • Clean contract record since launch
  • Reasonable integration depth

Against it

  • Nothing it does is best-in-class in this table
  • Yield has leaned heavily on points programmes
  • Launched2022
  • ModelLST plus LRT
  • ChainEthereum

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
7.8
Runs both a staking and a restaking token on a shared operator stack, with exposure published.
Operator selection
7.6
Operators are admitted by the protocol under published criteria.
Exit design
7.8
Withdrawals live with a published queue; on-chain liquidity is mid-table.
Yield quality
7.4
Headline yield has leaned heavily on points programmes, which the protocol discloses.

Full Swell review →

Score7.7
05

Mellow

Curated vaults with explicitly stated risk mandates

A modular vault framework where each curator publishes a mandate and picks its own operator and service exposure, which is the most honest structure in the category. It also demands more of the user than most are willing to give.

In its favour

  • Curator model makes risk mandates explicit per vault
  • Modular design avoids one-size-fits-all exposure
  • Institutional-grade documentation

Against it

  • Requires the user to evaluate curators, not just protocols
  • Individual vaults are small and illiquid
  • Launched2024
  • ModelCurated modular vaults
  • ChainEthereum

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
7.8
Each vault publishes its own mandate, operator set and service exposure, so exposure is stated per vault rather than pooled.
Operator selection
8.2
Curators select operators and services under published mandates, with allocations visible on-chain.
Exit design
7.2
Withdrawals follow each vault's published terms; individual vaults are small, which affects exit at size.
Yield quality
7.0
Yield is disclosed per vault with the incentive component separated from base rewards.

Full Mellow review →

Score7.6
06

Eigenpie

Isolating restaking exposure to a single LST

Issues a separate restaked token per accepted LST rather than pooling them, which lets users avoid collateral they do not want. The fragmentation that makes it precise also makes each individual token thinly traded.

In its favour

  • Isolated tokens avoid pooled collateral risk
  • Lets users pick exactly which LST they restake
  • Transparent one-to-one structure

Against it

  • Fragmented liquidity across many small tokens
  • Part of a larger protocol family, adding governance dependencies
  • Launched2024
  • ModelIsolated LRT per asset
  • ChainEthereum

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
7.6
Issues a separate token per accepted LST rather than pooling them, so exposure per token is published and isolated.
Operator selection
7.4
Operator selection is handled by the parent protocol family, with delegations visible on-chain.
Exit design
7.4
Withdrawals live per token; each individual token trades thinly, which lengthens exit at size.
Yield quality
7.2
Yield is staking rewards plus points; fee income is small.

Full Eigenpie review →

Score7.4
07

Bedrock

Restaking exposure beyond Ethereum

One of the few protocols extending restaking to non-Ethereum assets, including Bitcoin-adjacent designs. Novel surface area on top of an already novel category, which is reflected in the scoring.

In its favour

  • Multi-asset restaking beyond Ethereum
  • Institutional backing and published audits
  • Reasonable integration for its size

Against it

  • Non-Ethereum restaking designs are the least tested in the sector
  • Thin liquidity across its token set
  • Launched2023
  • ModelMulti-asset restaking
  • ChainsEthereum and others

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
7.4
Extends restaking to non-Ethereum assets, where slashing regimes are least established; exposure is published per product.
Operator selection
7.2
Operators are selected by the protocol under published criteria and institutional partners are named.
Exit design
7.2
Withdrawals live per product; liquidity across its token set is thin.
Yield quality
7.2
Yield mixes staking rewards with incentives; secured-service fee income is small.

Full Bedrock review →

Score7.3
08

Kelp DAO

Nobody yet — not until the rsETH backing is restored and the bridge design is replaced

Kelp's multi-asset design made rsETH easy to use, and its cross-chain adapter made it the largest DeFi loss of 2026: 116,500 unbacked rsETH minted on 18 April, roughly $292m, which then propagated into the lending markets that had accepted the token as collateral. The restaking contracts held; the bridge around them did not.

In its favour

  • Published a technical post-mortem naming the bridge configuration as the cause
  • The restaking contracts themselves were not compromised
  • Operator delegations remain publicly verifiable

Against it

  • Roughly $292m of unbacked rsETH minted in April 2026 — the largest DeFi exploit of the year
  • The failure propagated into Aave and other markets that had listed rsETH
  • Launched2023
  • ModelMulti-asset LRT
  • StatusRecovering from the April 2026 bridge exploit

Scorecard — and what it was read from

Slashing exposure
5.5
On 18 April 2026 an attacker minted 116,500 unbacked rsETH — roughly $292m, about 18% of supply — by feeding a crafted message to the protocol's LayerZero cross-chain adapter, which ran a single-point verification setup. DPRK-linked actors were credited with it; the restaking contracts themselves were not breached.
Operator selection
5.5
Operator delegations remain visible on-chain, but the incident showed that cross-chain verification depended on infrastructure the documentation never surfaced as a single point of failure.
Exit design
3.5
Redemption was overwhelmed by unbacked supply: the minted rsETH was posted as collateral on Aave and borrowed against, forcing liquidations and a liquidity squeeze across every market that had accepted the token.
Yield quality
5.5
Before the exploit, yield was staking rewards plus points; what a holder now has is a recovery claim rather than a yield position.

Full Kelp DAO review →

Score5.1

↑ Back to the table at a glance

What the record supports

ether.fi is the most complete product in the category and the one with the clearest disclosures, which is why it leads. Kelp sits at the bottom because April 2026 answered the open question in this category the hard way: $292m of unbacked rsETH minted through a cross-chain adapter, from a protocol whose restaking contracts were never breached. The slashing regimes are still being written, the bridges around them are the weakest link, and nobody should hold a liquid restaking token in size they would be uncomfortable explaining to themselves after a bad week.

A conclusion drawn from the facts above, and the only part of this page that is.

How a score is read

Each axis is read off the same five bands. They describe what is on the record, not how impressed we are.

9.0–10
Documented and independently verifiable
The claim is evidenced by a published record a third party can check — an attestation, an on-chain contract, a regulator's register — and nothing adverse is on file.
8.0–8.9
Documented, with gaps
Evidence exists but is partial, dated, or covers only part of what the axis measures.
7.0–7.9
Self-reported only
The operator publishes the information and no independent party has verified it.
6.0–6.9
Adverse event on record
A recorded incident, enforcement action or failure that has since been resolved, remediated or repaid.
Below 6
Undocumented or unresolved
No published evidence, or an incident with no resolution on the record. An absence of evidence is scored as an absence.

How we scored this table

Restaking rehypothecates staked capital: the same collateral secures additional services and takes on additional slashing conditions. This table records what those conditions are — which services a token's stake secures, whether the list is published, and whether slashing on them is live yet.

Yield is recorded by source. Points and token emissions are separated from fees actually paid by secured services, because a points balance is a discretionary promise with terms the issuer can change, and the fee income across this category remains small relative to the capital deposited. Where a protocol does not publish the split, that is recorded.

Exit design is recorded as the number of layers to unwind and the published queue at each, checked against what tokens actually traded at during stress. This is the youngest table on the Ratings Desk and the shortest evidence base: several protocols here have under two years of production history, and the scores are capped accordingly.

  • Every score on this page carries the fact it was read from, printed beside the bar.
  • Points are recorded as incentives, never as yield, until they convert.
  • Where slashing on a secured service is not yet live, the page says so rather than scoring the risk as absent.

What each axis records, and where the facts come from

Slashing exposure35%
Which services the deposited stake secures, whether that list is published per token, whether slashing is live on those services yet, and whether a depositor can opt out of any of them.
Source: Protocol dashboards and restaking registries, on-chain operator delegations, service documentation.
Operator selection25%
How operators and services are chosen and by whom, whether the criteria are published, and whether the resulting allocations are visible on-chain.
Source: Protocol governance documentation, published operator criteria, on-chain delegation records.
Exit design20%
How many layers must be unwound to redeem, the published queue length at each, and the recorded secondary-market discount during stress.
Source: On-chain withdrawal queues, price history, protocol documentation.
Yield quality20%
The split between fees actually paid by secured services, base staking rewards, and token or points incentives.
Source: Protocol revenue disclosures, emission schedules, published points-programme terms.

Frequently asked questions

What extra risk does restaking add compared with staking?+

Additional slashing conditions. Your capital now secures services beyond the base chain, each with its own penalty rules, and you generally did not pick them individually. That is the trade for the extra yield.

Are points the same as yield?+

No. Points are a discretionary promise of a future token allocation, with terms the issuer can change. Treat them as a lottery ticket attached to the position, not as income.

Why do LRTs sometimes trade below their underlying value?+

Because redemption is slow and layered — you may need to exit the restaking layer before the staking layer. When people want liquidity faster than the queue provides, the discount appears.

Is looping an LRT a reasonable strategy?+

It is the fastest way to turn a moderate yield into a total loss. Looping stacks discount risk, slashing risk and liquidation risk on the same position, and all three tend to arrive together.

More in Yield & Lending