Restake ETH.

To restake ETH means reusing ether that already secures Ethereum's consensus layer to also secure a separate set of applications, called Actively Validated Services, in exchange for additional yield. The idea began with EigenLayer, which lets validators or liquid-staking-token holders opt their stake into a shared security marketplace rather than leaving it idle once Ethereum's own staking reward has been earned. An AVS can be an oracle network, a data availability layer, a bridge, or any service that needs cryptoeconomic guarantees but does not want to bootstrap its own validator set from scratch. Instead of asking thousands of new participants to lock fresh capital, an AVS rents the security that ETH restakers already provide, and pays for it the same way Ethereum itself does: through rewards that scale with the risk taken on. The total value committed this way is public and tracked on dashboards such as DefiLlama.

There are two distinct paths into restaking, and the choice shapes both the complexity and the risk of the position.

Native Restaking on EigenLayer

Native restaking means pointing an active Ethereum validator's withdrawal credentials at the EigenLayer contracts described in the EigenLayer docs, so the validator's 32 ETH balance itself becomes the collateral backing AVS commitments. This route keeps the ETH in the same validator that performs Ethereum consensus duties, so a restaker runs their own infrastructure and accepts direct responsibility for both consensus penalties and any AVS-specific faults.

Liquid Staking Token (LST) Restaking

The far more common path is depositing a liquid staking token into EigenLayer's smart contracts instead of running a validator directly. A holder of a staked-ETH token can lock it, receive a receipt token representing the restaked position, and keep that position liquid enough to use elsewhere in DeFi while it earns restaking rewards. This is the route most people mean when they say they restake ETH, because it requires no hardware and no validator key management.

Choosing Between the Two

Native restaking suits someone already running validators who wants the extra yield without adding a new asset to manage. LST restaking suits anyone who already holds a liquid staking token and wants additional yield without giving up composability. Both ultimately delegate the same underlying economic weight to the same operators and the same AVS set — the difference is operational, not economic.

An AVS never deals with thousands of individual restakers directly — it deals with operators, and that layer is worth understanding before you delegate.

What Operators Secure

An operator runs the actual software an AVS needs: validating off-chain computation, signing data availability attestations, relaying cross-chain messages, or whatever that specific service requires. Operators register with EigenLayer, declare which AVSs they support, and accept delegated restaked ETH as the economic backing for the work they perform.

Delegation and Operator Choice

When you restake ETH, you delegate it to an operator rather than running AVS infrastructure yourself. The operator's reliability, the AVS set it participates in, and its historical slashing record all determine the yield and the risk you inherit, which makes operator selection the single most consequential choice in the entire process — comparable in weight to choosing a staking pool when you first staked on ethereum.org's staking page.

Modeling what restaking adds on top of base staking only takes three inputs: the amount of ETH or LST you restake, the APY the AVS set and operator currently pay, and the period you plan to hold the position. Enter an amount, an expected APY, and a number of months or years, and the calculator projects the extra reward on top of whatever the base staking yield already produces, compounding or simple depending on how the AVS distributes payouts. Because AVS rewards vary by operator and by which services are live, treat any APY figure as a snapshot rather than a guarantee, and re-check it against current operator data, such as the figures published in the EigenLayer overview docs, before committing a larger amount.

The extra yield from restaking ETH is not free money layered onto a safe position — it is compensation for a second, independent risk.

Dual Slashing Exposure

A restaked validator or LST position can now be slashed for two separate categories of fault: the usual Ethereum consensus penalties for downtime or equivocation, documented on Ethereum's Wikipedia entry and elsewhere, plus any AVS-specific slashing condition the restaker opted into, such as submitting a false oracle price or failing a data-availability attestation. These two slashing paths are independent; a clean consensus record does not protect against an AVS fault, and vice versa.

The table below sets native restaking, LST restaking, and plain base staking side by side so the yield and risk trade-off is easy to compare at a glance.

Strategy	Yield Source	Risk Level
Plain base staking	Consensus rewards only	Consensus slashing only
Native restaking	Consensus rewards + AVS rewards	Consensus + AVS slashing
LST restaking	Staking yield + AVS rewards, stays liquid	Consensus + AVS slashing, plus smart-contract risk

The mechanics are consistent across LST restaking, which is the path most people take.

• Hold a liquid staking token representing already-staked ETH, or run an active validator you control.
• Deposit the token, or point your validator's withdrawal credentials, into the EigenLayer contracts.
• Select one or more operators to delegate your restaked position to, reviewing their AVS set and track record.
• Monitor accrued AVS rewards alongside your base staking yield, checking balances against on-chain records such as Etherscan.
• Undelegate and queue a withdrawal when you want to exit, waiting out the unbonding period before funds are free.