Kelp

Our assessment

Kelp holds $888m with two audits and reports linked, the strongest evidence profile in liquid restaking. Its token represents ETH that is staked and then restaked to secure additional services, earning a second layer of rewards for a second layer of risk.

What restaking actually adds

Staked ETH secures Ethereum. Restaking pledges that same stake as security for other services, which pay for it. The extra yield is a fee for accepting extra slashing conditions — you are now exposed to the correctness of every service your stake underwrites, not just to Ethereum consensus.

Slashing risk is the part people skip

Ethereum slashing is well understood and rare. The slashing rules of newly launched services are neither. A protocol distributing your stake across several of them is distributing your exposure across several immature risk models, and no yield figure communicates that. This is the single most important thing to understand before holding any restaking token.

Diversification across operators helps

Spreading across multiple operators and services means one failure does not take everything, which is the right structure given the uncertainty. It reduces the severity of a bad outcome rather than its probability.

Who it suits

Kelp fits users who understand restaking's compounded slashing exposure and want the best-documented option in the category. Users who want yield without additional slashing conditions should stake normally through Lido, Rocket Pool or StakeWise.