Ethereum Re-staking Ecosystem Welcomes New Opportunities

With the approval of the Bitcoin spot ETF, Ethereum is also benefiting. The Cancun upgrade and expectations for the Ethereum spot ETF have injected new vitality into it. Against this backdrop, the staking volume of Ethereum continues to rise, and the demand for re-staking is becoming increasingly prominent.

EigenLayer, as a pioneer of re-staking, allows users to re-stake ETH, lsdETH, and LP Tokens to other sidechains, oracles, etc., to earn validation rewards as nodes. This not only benefits third-party projects from the security of the Ethereum mainnet, but also brings additional profits to ETH stakers.

In just one month, EigenLayer has absorbed over 500,000 Ether, with a total locked value of (TVL) exceeding 1.6 billion USD, climbing to become the 12th top protocol in the Ethereum ecosystem. Recently, EigenLayer also announced the provision of re-staking services for Cosmos subchains, which is of significant importance for both the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems.

The re-staking track is not limited to EigenLayer, but has also derived multiple potential projects:

1. Kelp DAO: A re-staking project under the multi-chain LSD project Stader Lab, currently supporting stETH and ETHx.

2. Swell: A long-established LSD protocol that is entering the Liquid Restaking field. Its LST token swETH ranks second in EigenLayer.

3. ether.fi: Provides decentralized, non-custodial ETH staking services and supports re-staking. Its collateral certificate eETH is one of the few liquid LRT tokens.

4. Renzo: Also belongs to the Liquid Native Restaking type, currently still open for deposits but does not support redemptions at this time.

5. Puffer Finance: A liquidity staking protocol that prevents penalties, plans to reduce the 32 ETH node threshold of EigenLayer to below 2 ETH.

It is worth mentioning that through the YT-eETH trading on the Pendle platform, investors can simultaneously earn staking rewards, ether.fi double points, EigenLayer points, and Pendle trading rewards, but they should be aware of the potential risks.

Although re-staking brings more opportunities for stakers, the potential risks cannot be ignored, including penalty risks, centralization risks, contract risks, and the accumulation of multi-layered risks.

With the revival of the Ethereum ecosystem, the re-staking ecosystem is expected to become another main theme after the positive impact of the Cancun upgrade on the L2 sector. However, investors need to carefully assess risks and weigh returns against potential losses when participating.