What Is StakeWise? Vaults, osETH and Liquid Staking Explained

StakeWise has four separate parts ¹:

• The protocol: smart contracts on Ethereum and Gnosis Chain covering Vaults, osToken, validator management and MEV distribution.
• The interface: the web app at app.stakewise.io, where you stake, browse Vaults and create your own.
• The DAO: SWISE holders, who vote on StakeWise Improvement Proposals (SWIPs) ¹³.
• StakeWise Labs: the core development team. It also runs one of the protocol's oracles ¹².

Operators run the validators. Named operators with StakeWise Vaults include Chorus One, Figment, P2P, Consensys Staking, NodeSet and Serenita. MetaMask also uses StakeWise Vaults for its staking product ³¹⁷.

Vaults. A Vault is a staking pool contract. Your deposit buys Vault shares, which grow in value as rewards come in. Once a Vault has 32 ETH (or 1 GNO on Gnosis Chain), its operator registers a validator. Six of StakeWise's eleven oracles must approve each registration ⁵. Vaults come in several types ⁴:

• Standard: open to anyone; shares are non-transferable.
• ERC-20: shares are a tradable token.
• Private: only whitelisted wallets can deposit, for example a KYC'd institutional pool.
• Blocklist: open to all except blocked addresses.
• MetaVault: spreads deposits across other Vaults.

Oracles. An independent committee of 11 oracles per chain reports Beacon Chain rewards and penalties to the contracts. It also approves validators and can force exits. On Ethereum the oracles include Chorus One, stakefish, Telekom, Finoa, Bitfly, P2P and StakeWise Labs. Oracles hold no funds, and any update needs 6 of 11 signatures ¹².

Isolation. Because Vaults do not share risk, a slashing or performance problem in one Vault stays in that Vault ³¹⁰. The trade-off is that your rewards depend on the operator you pick.

StakeWise gives you three options ²⁹:

1. Simple Staking. Deposit ETH in the app. It is routed through a MetaVault, currently the Genesis Vault, and osETH is minted for you automatically ⁶.
2. Vault Staking. Open the Vault marketplace at app.stakewise.io, use the "Verified" filter if you want only Vaults the StakeWise team has reviewed, and check each Vault's fee, type and contract details. Stake, then optionally mint osETH ⁹.
3. Run your own Vault. Operators, solo stakers, DAOs and institutions can launch a Vault with their own fee and MEV settings ²³.

Use only app.stakewise.io. StakeWise warns that phishing sites have copied its interface ¹⁵.

osETH is a repricing token: your balance stays the same, and each osETH becomes worth more ETH as rewards accrue ⁶. It is minted against your Vault stake like a loan, so you can only mint up to a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ⁶:

"100% osETH minting" in StakeWise discussions means this near-100% LTV tier. In May 2025, NodeSet asked the DAO, through proposal SWIP-32, to grant it for NodeSet's Private Vault. It cited criteria including a 5% fee, more than 10,000 ETH staked, top-half performance and a 5M SWISE bond ¹⁸.

If your osETH debt grows faster than your Vault's rewards, your position's health drops. A "Risky" position can be redeemed, meaning part of your collateral is used to settle osETH that others hand back to the protocol. An "Unhealthy" one can be liquidated ⁶⁷. These grades do not apply in DAO-approved Vaults ⁶. You can fix a position by burning osETH or adding stake ⁹.

When osETH trades below its fair value on the market, anyone can redeem it for ETH at the protocol rate through a queue. That keeps the market price close to the exchange rate ⁷¹⁰.

You pay two possible fees, both taken from rewards and never from principal ⁸:

• Vault fee: set by the Vault's operator, from 0% to 100%, and typically 3–5% ⁸⁹. An operator can raise it by at most 20% of the current rate at a time (for example, 5% to 6%), with a 3-day delay ⁸.
• osETH fee: the DAO charges 5% of the rewards accrued on any osETH you have minted. It does this by increasing the osETH you owe the Vault. If you do not mint osETH, you do not pay it ⁸¹⁷.

StakeWise's own example: 10 ETH in a 5%-fee Vault earning 0.4 ETH a year nets 0.38 ETH, or about 0.361 ETH if the full position is also minted as osETH ⁸. Gas fees come on top.

Boost is a one-click leveraged strategy on Ethereum. It deposits your osETH as collateral on Aave, borrows ETH, stakes it and repeats ¹¹. It earns extra only while staking rewards exceed Aave's ETH borrow rate. If that spread turns negative for long, the position loses value and moves toward Aave's 95% liquidation threshold ¹⁰¹¹. Above 94.5% LTV anyone can unwind ("unboost") the position, and StakeWise says it monitors positions. It states that this is a safeguard, not a guarantee ¹⁰.

Unstaking is not instant. Your request joins the Vault's exit queue. It is paid first from ETH already sitting in the Vault, and then from validator exits ¹⁰. Two things set the timing:

• A fixed 15-hour delay before you can claim, even if the Vault has the ETH ready.
• Ethereum's validator exit queue, if validators need to exit. This varies with network demand.

Rewards keep accruing while you wait. If an operator does not free up ETH within 24 hours, the oracles force validator exits, so an unresponsive operator cannot hold your withdrawal indefinitely ¹⁰.

StakeWise launched its first pooled product, V2 with the sETH2 and rETH2 tokens, in 2021. SWISE emissions began on April 1, 2021 ¹⁴¹⁷. V3 replaced the single pool with the Vault marketplace and osETH in late 2023, and V2 holders can migrate in the app ¹⁵¹⁹. SWISE has a fixed supply of 1 billion: 51% to the community, about 25% to investors, about 22% to the team and 2% for future fundraising ¹⁴. Protocol changes go through SWIPs, which are discussed on the forum and voted on through Snapshot ¹³.

• Audits. V3 contracts have been audited by Halborn (2023), Sigma Prime (2023 and 2024), Consensys Diligence (2024), ABDK (2025) and Statemind (2026) ¹⁶. Audits reduce risk but do not guarantee there are no bugs.
• Track record. StakeWise says the protocol has had no security incidents since it launched in 2021 ¹⁰. A 2024 independent risk review also found no slashing or security incidents ¹⁹.
• Admin control. As of 2024, protocol ownership sat with a 4-of-7 multisig, according to that review ¹⁹.