Restaking continues to gain momentum, analyzing the characteristics and selection criteria of nine major protocols from seven dimensions

Written by: Nan Zhi, Odaily Planet Daily

Last week, the crypto restaking service provider EigenLayer announced the completion of a $100 million financing round, with participation from a16z. Binance Labs also announced investments in two restaking protocols, Puffer Finance and Renzo. On the other hand, early February on-chain analysis showed that three addresses belonging to Sun Yuchen had staked 271,328 stETH for restaking, currently valued at $880 million.

The popularity of restaking is on the rise.

Odaily Planet Daily will summarize various mainstream restaking protocols in this article, comparing their differences and highlights from multiple dimensions. The following chart lists the protocols in descending order of TVL.

Protocol Comparison

Financing

In terms of financing, there are currently not many protocols that have publicly announced their financing status, with announcements concentrated at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 (Swell's financing was primarily aimed at its LSD business), with amounts all in the millions of dollars.

On the other hand, the overlap of participating institutions among the protocols is low. The leading institution for ether.fi, which ranks first in TVL, is North Island Ventures and Chapter One, while Puffer Finance is led by Lemniscap and Faction, among others. The most impactful financing event was Binance Labs announcing its investment in Puffer Finance and Renzo, with the market believing this news indicates a high likelihood of the tokens being listed on Binance. As the investment news was disclosed, TVL rose rapidly.

Pendle Fixed Rate

Pendle packages yield-bearing tokens into SY (Standard Yield Tokens), which are then split into two components: principal and yield, represented by PT (Principal Token) and YT (Yield Token). Users holding PT tokens can redeem an equivalent amount of principal upon maturity, while all interest during the period belongs to YT. The difference between the current price of PT and its maturity price represents the fixed yield.

Pendle has launched a proprietary navigation interface for LRT, as shown in the image below. The fixed yields for various protocols are approximately in the range of 30% to 40%, with maturity dates of 120 days and 57 days, respectively. It is worth noting that holding only PT means receiving only fixed yield, foregoing points and staking rewards.

Purchasing YT is equivalent to using leverage to obtain EigenLayer points and project points. Odaily Planet Daily has provided screenshots of some YT products below, where several protocols' YT represents obtaining EigenLayer points with ten times leverage, along with different multiples of leveraged points.

EigenLayer Points

Currently, only four protocols have disclosed EigenLayer points, with ether.fi having the most at 308 million points and Bedrock having the least at 13.3 million points.

Additionally, according to data from the points trading market Whales Market, the current floor price for EigenLayer points is approximately 0.15 USDT/point. For ether.fi stakers, this equates to a total of $46.2 million in points assets, accounting for about 3% of TVL. Readers can similarly calculate the value of EigenLayer points for other disclosed protocols or convert the points assets of other protocols based on TVL.

Moreover, Whales Market has also launched project points for ether.fi, with the current market depth being poor. If calculated based on the floor price of 0.00074/Point, the current protocol's Loyalty Points total 22.1 billion, approximately equal to $16.42 million. There are currently no publicly available reference prices for points from other protocols.

Asset Withdrawal

Currently, most restaking protocols have not implemented withdrawal logic, and assets can only be exited through various DEXs in exchange for assets, which incurs some friction. Ether.fi is the only protocol that allows direct withdrawals and has also prepared liquidity reserve funds to meet users' immediate withdrawal needs.

However, ether.fi has also faced accusations of "point theft." Community users pointed out that based on the TVL and EigenLayer points of other protocols, the points actually obtained by ether.fi are significantly less than the calculated expected points. Ether.fi responded that the relatively low points are due to the time difference in deposits and the funds prepared for users' immediate withdrawals, which are intended to transfer all EigenLayer points to users.

Conclusion

Each restaking protocol has its own characteristics, and users can choose based on their needs:

For users with high liquidity requirements, staking on ether.fi can provide the opportunity to exit at any time to participate in other protocols;

For users seeking stable returns, purchasing PT from Renzo may be a suitable choice.

For users with moderate risk tolerance, Puffer may be a good option due to its high expectations for being listed on Binance and the presence of large holders, such as Sun Yuchen, who is the top staker for Puffer.

Additionally, there are protocols like Zircuit and Eigenpie that offer a variety of rewards, suitable for users looking to improve capital efficiency and balance return expectations.