What Is Restaking?

Restaking lets assets already staked to secure one network be reused to secure additional services, so a new protocol can rent economic security instead of bootstrapping its own. EigenLayer introduced the pattern on Ethereum: stakers opt in to validate extra services and accept extra slashing risk in return for extra yield. It concentrates both security and risk, which is why the services built on it, and their slashing conditions, matter as much as the yield.

Introduced by

EigenLayer (Ethereum)

Idea

Reuse staked security for new services

Trade-off

Extra yield for extra, correlated slashing risk

Rented security, and its risk

Bootstrapping a new network’s security is slow and expensive. Restaking lets a service borrow the security of an established base by having its validators opt in, which is powerful for new infrastructure and dangerous if the same stake secures many services at once — a failure can cascade.

For an allocator the question is not whether the yield is attractive but what the restaked capital is actually underwriting, because the slashing conditions are the real liability.