What is restaking? How staked crypto backs more than one network

Restaking means putting crypto you have already staked to work a second time. You keep earning the base staking reward. On top of that, the same stake also helps secure other services, for extra pay. The main platform for it is EigenLayer, which launched on Ethereum in 2023. The catch is simple. More reward means more ways to lose.

EigenLayer's restaking contracts held about $5.67 billion on 6 November 2026, according to DefiLlama, well down from the highs of the 2024 restaking rush. This guide builds up in order: staking first, then liquid staking, then restaking, so each step makes sense before the next one arrives.

Staking, in one minute

Staking is how proof-of-stake blockchains like Ethereum stay secure. You lock up coins as a bond. In return, the network lets you help confirm transactions and pays you a reward. Behave, and you earn. Cheat or go offline, and the network can take part of your bond. That penalty is called slashing.

On Ethereum there is a price of entry. Running your own validator needs 32 ETH, far more than most people hold. So they turn to pools. Since an Ethereum upgrade in 2023, stakers can also pull their coins back out, which was not possible when staking first went live.

Liquid staking: a receipt you can move

Pooled staking lets many people combine smaller amounts to clear that 32 ETH bar. Ethereum's own documentation puts it plainly: pools let people "obtain the 32 ETH minimum required to activate a validator." The pool runs the validator. You take a share of the rewards.

Liquid staking goes one step further. When you deposit, the pool hands back a token that stands for your staked coins. Ethereum.org calls this a liquid staking token, "an ERC-20 token that represents a claim on staked ETH and the rewards it earns." Lido's stETH and Rocket Pool's rETH are the best-known examples.

The point is freedom. Your original coins stay locked on the network, but the receipt can be traded, lent or used as collateral while it keeps earning. One line from the same Ethereum page is worth keeping in mind: "Holding an LST is not the same as staking." You hold a claim on a contract, not coins in your own custody.

That receipt carries its own risk. In a panic, a liquid staking token can trade below the value of the ETH behind it, a gap known as a depeg. A holder who needs cash fast can take a loss even when the underlying stake is perfectly fine.

What restaking adds

Here is where restaking comes in. Once your ETH is staked, that bond mostly sits there, backing a single network. Restaking puts it to work again. EigenLayer, launched on Ethereum in 2023, lets stakers reuse the same collateral to secure extra services at once.

Cointelegraph described it in one line. Restaking means "taking a token that is already staked, and therefore already posted as collateral with a validator for rewards, and using it to secure other protocols at the same time." Those extra services are called actively validated services, or AVSs. Think data layers, oracles and bridges, the plumbing other apps lean on.

Real examples already run. EigenDA, built by the EigenLayer team, stores data for other chains. Services such as the ARPA Network tap the shared stake as well. Rollups, the layer 2s that pack transactions off the main chain, can borrow this kind of security too.

Three roles make it work. Restakers supply the coins. Operators run the software for each AVS. The services themselves pay for the security they rent. EigenLayer calls this a "free marketplace where Operators can earn rewards for their work." More than 30 AVSs were live on its mainnet, with dozens more being built, by the time it switched on real penalties.

For a new service, the appeal is speed. Building a fresh validator set from scratch is slow and costly. A young oracle or data layer must attract its own stakers and convince them its token is worth bonding. Restaking lets it skip that. It rents trust that Ethereum stakers have already posted, and pays for the use. That is the pitch, at least.

Native restaking versus liquid restaking

There are two ways in. Native restaking points your validator's withdrawal credentials at EigenLayer's own contracts, known as EigenPods. Your ETH stays staked on Ethereum, but the bond now answers to the restaking layer as well.

Liquid restaking is the easier route for most people. You take a liquid staking token, say stETH, and deposit that. Some platforms then issue a liquid restaking token, an LRT, which works like the liquid staking token but carries the extra restaking rewards and the extra risk. It is a receipt stacked on top of a receipt.

Each layer you add is another contract that has to work, and another set of rules that can cost you money. That is the part the yield numbers tend to skip.

Where the extra yield comes from

Two streams make up the pay. The base reward is the same as ordinary staking: the network pays you for helping confirm blocks. Restaking adds the second. Each AVS you back can pay a fee for the security it borrows, sometimes in its own token, sometimes in ETH. Stack a few services and those small streams are meant to add up to more than plain staking alone.

In practice the numbers swing. A new service often pays well early to pull in stake, then less once it is established. Some pay in tokens that can fall in value before you sell them. Published yields are estimates, not promises, and they move week to week. Treat any headline figure as a starting question, not an answer.

The rewards, and the risk that stacks

The appeal is easy to see. One pot of collateral works in several places at once, so a saver can draw more from the same coins. That is the upside. The downside sits right next to it.

Risk compounds the same way. Each AVS sets its own slashing rules, written into its contracts. Opt into five services and you accept five separate ways to be penalized, on top of Ethereum's own. EigenLayer put the core rule bluntly: "If Operators do not meet the conditions set, the AVS may penalize them."

Slashing here is real, not a thought experiment. EigenLayer said on 2 April 2025 that it would start enforcing slashing on its mainnet from 17 April 2025, its "first feature-complete" version. Before that, the penalty had run only on testnets, where no real money was at stake.

Other risks are the familiar ones, only multiplied. Smart contract bugs matter more, because your coins sit in code that "could contain bugs or be exploited," in Ethereum.org's words. Concentration matters more, because a few large operators holding most of the stake can, as the same page warns, "create conditions for censorship." A plain comparison helps. It is like using one security deposit to back two leases at once. Handy, until both landlords come calling.

Things to weigh before restaking

Restaking is young, and the ground keeps shifting. Enforced slashing on real money only started in 2025. The fee rules that decide who earns what are still being argued over. Neither EigenLayer nor the services it secures guarantees a yield, and nobody can say today what any of them will pay next year.

One plain rule holds. The deeper you stack receipts and services, the more ways a single failure can reach your money. Restaking can pay more than plain staking. It can also cost more. This is not advice to do it or to skip it. It is simply how the machine works, so you can weigh the trade with open eyes.