StakeWise

StakeWise is a staking protocol built around vaults. A vault is a staking pool with its own operator, fee and validator setup; anyone can open one, and stakers choose which to join or let the app pick. Against a stake in most vaults, a user can mint osETH on Ethereum or osGNO on Gnosis Chain, tokens that keep earning staking rewards and can be used elsewhere in DeFi.

The software is developed by StakeWise Labs, which the docs call the development team and which also runs one of the oracles. The protocol is governed by the StakeWise DAO, meaning holders of the SWISE token, who vote on StakeWise Improvement Proposals (SWIPs) through the forum and Snapshot. The DAO sets the osETH fee, approves oracles and contract changes, and manages the treasury. StakeWise does not publish a legal entity, registered address or terms of service on the pages we checked, and its GitHub organisation lists its location as Global. The docs say the protocol has been live since 2021.

Depositing into a vault gives the user vault shares whose value rises as rewards come in. Shares are not transferable unless the vault is an ERC-20 vault. Each vault is isolated, so a penalty or slashing in one does not reach stakers in another. Vault types include standard, ERC-20, private (whitelisted depositors) and blocklist vaults, and MetaVaults that spread deposits across several sub-vaults. The app's Simple Staking option routes deposits through a MetaVault that currently ends in the Genesis Vault.

osETH is minted against vault shares as collateral, much like a loan. In a standard vault a staker can mint up to 90% of the stake's value; if the osETH owed grows past 92% of the collateral, anyone can liquidate the position and take a 1% premium. Vaults that meet DAO performance criteria and post a 5 million SWISE operator bond can allow 99.99%. Because the token is always backed by more staked ETH than has been minted, StakeWise describes osETH as overcollateralised.

osETH is a repricing token: its ETH value rises rather than its balance. The exchange rate is set by the OsTokenVaultController contract, and oracles update the reward rate. When osETH trades below that rate, anyone can redeem it through the OsTokenRedeemer exit queue at the protocol rate, which is the arbitrage that keeps the market price close.

A StakeWise staker can pay two separate fees, and the docs show how they stack in a worked example.

In the docs' example, 10 ETH earning 0.4 ETH a year in a vault with a 5% fee keeps 0.38 ETH; with osETH minted, the extra 5% osETH fee brings the net to 0.361 ETH. Vault operators can raise their fee by no more than 20% of the current rate at a time, with a 3-day delay between changes. For how those combined fees and osETH liquidity compare with other liquid staking tokens, see how StakeWise compares with other liquid staking protocols.

StakeWise lists external audits for V3 from Halborn (May and August 2023), Sigma Prime (August 2023, June 2024 and September 2024), Consensys Diligence (March 2024), ABDK (September 2025) and Statemind (April 2026). Its risk page says the protocol has been live since 2021 with no security incidents in its own contracts.

The oracle network is the main trust assumption. Eleven independent operators per chain, including Chorus One, Stake.fish, Telekom, Finoa, Bitfly, P2P and StakeWise Labs, sign reports on Beacon Chain rewards and validator actions, and contracts accept an update only with 6 of 11 signatures. Oracles hold no funds and cannot move them. If a vault operator does not free up ETH for withdrawals within 24 hours, the oracles force validator exits.

The risks a holder should weigh: validator penalties or slashing in the chosen vault, which reduce that vault's ETH; smart contract risk; osETH trading below its rate on secondary markets; and, for minters, liquidation if the position's LTV drifts too high. Boost, which loops osETH through Aave to borrow more ETH and restake it, adds lending-rate and liquidation risk; StakeWise's team may unboost positions above 94.5% LTV, but calls that a safeguard, not a guarantee.

Third-party venues are a separate risk. In November 2025 an exploit of Balancer V2 stable pools took about 6,851 osETH from the osETH-ETH pool on Ethereum and 13,495 osGNO from the osGNO-GNO pool on Gnosis Chain. StakeWise's team recovered about 5,041 osETH and all of the osGNO the same day and later asked the DAO to approve a pro-rata distribution to the pools' liquidity providers, using balances supplied by the Balancer team.

In the StakeWise app, Simple Staking takes ETH and, by default, mints osETH in the same transaction; the user can instead choose stake only, or stake and Boost (from 0.05 ETH). Vault Staking lets the user pick a specific vault from the marketplace, check its fee and performance, then deposit and optionally mint osETH. Users who want to run their own vault can deploy one as an operator.

Unstaking burns the osETH that was minted against the position, so the osETH must be in the wallet, and any Boost has to be unwound first. The request joins the vault's exit queue: it is served from ETH already liquid in the vault, then from validator exits, with a fixed minimum of 15 hours before a claim and a further wait if Ethereum's exit queue is long. The app shows a live estimate and the past month's average. osETH bought on a DEX is not tied to a position, so it is sold or swapped rather than unstaked.

StakeWise's docs send users to its Discord for help and updates, and governance runs on forum.stakewise.io and Snapshot. A StakeWise contributor wrote on the forum in September 2026 that the team receives a steady stream of phishing emails and messages, which is why it prefers discussion in public governance channels. Users should treat direct messages offering help or claims with suspicion.

StakeWise has moved from a single staking pool to an open marketplace of vaults.

• 1 April 2021: SWISE token emissions begin.
• May–August 2023: Halborn and Sigma Prime audit the V3 vault contracts.
• November 2024: SWIP-23 proposes splitting the Genesis Vault off as an independent vault, and SWIP-24 sets a policy for 100% osETH minting in selected vaults.
• 7 October 2025: StakeWise V3 value locked peaks at about $1.58 billion, according to DefiLlama.
• 3 November 2025: Balancer V2 exploit hits the osETH and osGNO pools; StakeWise recovers most of the stolen osETH and all of the osGNO.
• April 2026: Statemind audit published.