What Is Swell Network? swETH, rswETH Restaking, Fees and Withdrawals

Swell turns staked ETH into a token you can move. Staking ETH directly needs 32 ETH and a running validator; Swell pools deposits of any size and assigns them to professional node operators who run the validators ². In exchange you get an ERC-20 token whose exchange rate against ETH rises as rewards come in. (See liquid staking for the general model.)

There are two layers:

• swETH is plain liquid staking. Your ETH earns Ethereum consensus and execution rewards.
• rswETH adds restaking. The staked ETH is also committed through EigenLayer as security for other services, called AVSs, which can pay additional rewards ². Swell's docs say its AVS selection framework, designed with risk firm Gauntlet, is still "under construction" ⁹, so what rswETH is actually securing at any moment is best checked in the app.

• swBTC — a restaking vault for WBTC that allocates to Symbiotic, Karak and EigenLayer, with Gauntlet choosing strategies. It is built on Yearn v3 vault code ¹⁰.
• rSWELL — the same vault design for SWELL tokens, letting holders earn restaking yield while keeping voting rights ¹⁰.
• Earn vaults (earnETH, earnBTC) — automated DeFi strategy vaults run on infrastructure from Nucleus, with Gauntlet as risk guardian. earnETH accepts WETH, swETH, rswETH and several other ETH tokens and has deployed into Morpho, Pendle and PancakeSwap ¹¹.

Swell charges 10% of staking rewards on swETH and rswETH: 5% goes to node operators and 5% to the Swell DAO treasury, leaving 90% for stakers ⁵. The fee tables in the docs were last updated in July 2023 (swETH) and January 2024 (rswETH), so confirm current rates in the app. The protocol does not charge a fee to withdraw, but each transaction pays Ethereum gas ⁶.

Earn vaults have a separate fee stack: a 1% yearly platform fee on assets, a 10% performance fee on yield, and a 0.01%–0.50% solver fee when you withdraw ¹¹. Swell's own worked example: if the vault earns 10% in a year, a $10,000 deposit pays $100 in performance fees and $100 in platform fees, for a net 8% ¹¹.

The current docs also describe a "Fee Flow" mechanism: protocol fees collected in swETH and rswETH are sold every 14 days in a Dutch auction for SWELL, and the SWELL received is burned ¹³.

You can leave Swell in two ways.

Redeem through the Swell app. You request a withdrawal at the protocol exchange rate and wait. For swETH the docs say this usually takes 1–7 days, sometimes 12 days or more ⁴. For rswETH it can take up to 28 days, because EigenLayer adds its own 14-day withdrawal delay on top of Ethereum's validator exit queue ³. Each request must be between 0.005 ETH and 500 ETH, though you can submit several. Once a request is queued you cannot cancel it. It is represented by a transferable swEXIT NFT; whoever holds that NFT can claim the ETH ⁶.

Sell on the secondary market. You can swap swETH or rswETH on a DEX or aggregator within minutes. The price there can be below the protocol rate, and large swaps face slippage ³⁸.

Swell's docs name the main risks plainly ⁸:

• Smart-contract risk. A bug could put deposits at risk. swETH and rswETH were audited by Sigma Prime and Codespect, with reports published on GitHub, and Swell runs a bug bounty of up to $250,000 through Immunefi ⁷. Audits reduce risk; they do not remove it.
• Slashing and penalties. Validators can be penalized for downtime or slashed for misbehavior. With rswETH, restaking adds the possibility of slashing by the services being secured ³⁸.
• Depeg risk. swETH and rswETH can trade below their underlying ETH value when there is more selling than buying ⁸.
• Delay risk. Exit times depend on Ethereum and EigenLayer queues that Swell does not control ³.

The tokens themselves are self-custodied: Swell never holds your keys. That also means a phishing approval or a lost seed phrase cannot be reversed by the protocol.

SWELL is the governance token of the Swell DAO ¹². Maximum supply is 10 billion. The docs allocate 35% to the community (including an 8.5% "Voyage" airdrop to early users), 25% to the team on a 36-month vesting schedule after a 12-month cliff, 25% to investors on 30-month vesting after a 12-month lock, and 15% to a foundation ¹². Some rewards are paid as wSWELL, a wrapper that unlocks 35% immediately and the rest over 70 days; withdrawing early forfeits and burns the locked part ¹². See what a DAO is for how token voting works.

Swell was founded in October 2021 by Daniel Dizon and Lecky Lao. In March 2022 it raised a $3.75 million seed round led by Framework Ventures, with IOSG Ventures, Apollo Capital and Maven 11 participating ¹⁴. Development is carried out by Swell Labs on behalf of the DAO ⁶. In April 2026 Swell said it would close Swellchain and concentrate on a new product called Faro ¹⁵.