Restaking

Restaking is the practice of using tokens that are already staked to secure one network as collateral to secure additional protocols at the same time, earning extra rewards in exchange for taking on additional slashing risk. The idea is to rent out a blockchain's economic security: rather than each new service bootstrapping its own validator set and token, it borrows the security of an established stake base.

The canonical example is EigenLayer on Ethereum. An ETH staker — or a holder of a liquid staking token such as stETH — opts in to EigenLayer and commits their stake to back services like data availability layers, oracle networks, or bridges, known as actively validated services. Each service defines its own duties and slashing conditions; operators who violate them can lose restaked funds. In return, restakers earn additional yield paid by those services.

A common misconception is that restaking is free extra yield on idle stake — the same capital is now exposed to multiple independent slashing regimes, so risks stack rather than diversify. Critics also note systemic concerns: if a large share of a chain's stake is restaked and a widely used service fails or slashes en masse, stress could propagate back to the base network. Restaking amplifies both the productivity and the fragility of staked capital.