Ratings · Measured, not sponsored
Liquid restaking
Restaking sells extra yield for extra risk. We measured the yield against plain staking — the thing it actually has to beat — and found that several of these tokens pay less than doing nothing at all, while carrying a second live slashing layer.
The one token here that genuinely out-yields plain staking. The premium is still not matched to any published figure for the risk you are taking on.
2.135% against stETH’s 2.226% — a negative premium for a second slashing layer, from the token that already wicked 73% once.
1.549%. You could hold stETH, take more yield, and keep one slashing layer instead of two.
What we did · July 15, 2026We measured each restaked token against the yield of simply staking — the thing it has to beat to justify a second layer of slashing — and against the depth genuinely available to sell it into.
A negative premium for a second slashing layer
Plain stETH pays 2.226%. Renzo pays 2.135%. Puffer pays 1.549%.
The entire proposition of this category is that you are compensated for taking on additional risk. On these numbers you are paying for the privilege. And since April 2025 the additional risk is not theoretical: EigenLayer slashing is live, and redistribution means a slashed stake can be handed to the service that slashed it rather than burned.
Every one is thinner than what it wraps
A restaked token adds a layer of risk on top of an asset that was already hard to sell. That is why depth and disclosed restaking risk together carry 60% of the score on this page.
The ranking
Click any row for the quick read, or open a company for its full profile and per-criterion scores. Measured July 15, 2026. How we rate.
HOW WE SCORED THIS — CRITERIA AND WEIGHTS+
A restaked token is a staking token plus a second layer of slashing — and since April 2025, a layer where a slashed stake can be redistributed to the service that slashed it rather than burned. So the yield is not scored against other restaked tokens. It is scored against simply staking, which is the thing this whole category has to beat.
EigenLayer slashing has been live since April 2025, and redistribution now lets a service take your slashed funds rather than burn them. We ask whether the extra risk is quantified for the holder: which services the stake is delegated to, what the maximum loss is, and who decides. It essentially never is.
Outstanding value against the depth genuinely available to sell into. ezETH wicked 73% in April 2024 on a fully-backed token because there was no market underneath it. Every token here is thinner than the liquid staking token it wraps, and the ratio is the score.
Measured against plain staking, not against other restaked tokens. A token paying less than a plain stake while adding a slashing layer is not a yield product, and it is scored as what it is.
Do you hold an asset or an IOU, who can change the operator set, and what covers a slashing event — a claim you own, a fund of stated size, or a governance vote after the fact.
Whether the advertised rate is net of the protocol’s cut, and whether the formula and the raw inputs are published so a holder can recompute it.
Weights sum to 100. If we cannot verify a criterion, we delete it rather than score it on impressions — read the methodology.
Is there a free alternative?
The honest answer for almost everyone is: do not use this category at all.
Plain staking pays about 2.2% net with one slashing risk. Several tokens on this page pay less than that while adding EigenLayer slashing on top, and since April 2025 a slashed stake can be redistributed to the service that slashed it rather than burned. The extra yield, where it exists at all, is measured in tens of basis points. The extra risk is not quantified anywhere by anyone — including the protocols themselves. If you want ETH yield, stake it. If you want to underwrite the security of other people’s services, do that deliberately, with money you can lose.
What changed since last time
- 2026-08-27Split out of the old combined staking page.Restaked tokens carry a second slashing layer that plain staking does not. Listing them in the same table as stETH implied a comparison that misleads.
- 2026-07-15Category published.The restaking pitch is extra yield. Measured against plain staking, several of these pay less — and the added risk is disclosed nowhere.
Questions
What is liquid restaking, in one paragraph?+
You stake ETH, receive a liquid staking token, and then pledge that staked ETH a second time as security for other services — oracles, bridges, data-availability layers — through EigenLayer or a similar system. In return you get a liquid restaking token and an extra slice of yield. The pitch is that the same capital earns twice. The part that is not on the marketing page is that the same capital can now be slashed twice, by rules written by whoever runs those services.
Do restaked tokens actually pay more than plain staking?+
Frequently not, and this is the finding that should change what people do. Renzo’s ezETH pays 2.135% and Puffer’s pufETH pays 1.549%, against plain stETH at 2.226%. That is not a smaller premium for extra risk — it is a NEGATIVE premium: you are paid less than the simplest and most liquid alternative while carrying a second slashing layer on top of Ethereum’s. Only ether.fi pays a genuine premium, and even there nobody has quantified the risk you are being compensated for.
What changed when EigenLayer slashing went live?+
Until April 2025 the extra risk was theoretical — the slashing machinery was not switched on. It is now, and it comes with redistribution: a slashed stake can be transferred to the service that slashed it rather than burned. That turns a penalty into a payment, and it gives whoever operates a service an incentive structure nobody has properly priced for the person actually holding the token. Ask any of these protocols to quantify your maximum loss and see what you get back.
How liquid are these tokens?+
Thinner than the liquid staking tokens they wrap, in every case. ezETH wicked 73% in April 2024 on a fully-backed token because there was no market underneath it, and Kelp’s rsETH has had roughly $2.1 million of exit against nearly a billion dollars outstanding. If a plain liquid staking token is a building with an emergency exit sized for one person, a restaked one is that building with the exit partially bricked up.
Who is this category actually for?+
People who want to underwrite the security of other people’s infrastructure and are being paid a stated, quantified amount to do it. That describes almost nobody using these products today. If you want ETH yield, stake ETH — the extra basis points here, where they exist at all, do not cover a risk that no one on either side has managed to put a number on.
How this is funded
It is not. There are no affiliate links on this page or anywhere on this site, no paid placements, and no sponsored positions. Nobody in this table can buy a place in it, accelerate their inclusion, or influence a score — and none of them paid us anything, because there is nothing here to buy. The full policy.