Kelp (KelpDAO) issues rsETH, a liquid restaking token that represents restaked Ethereum. When you deposit, you receive a token you can hold, move or use elsewhere in DeFi while the underlying stake is restaked to earn additional rewards.
What is a liquid restaking token?
Ordinary staking locks your ETH. Restaking re-commits already-staked ETH to secure extra services for extra yield. A liquid restaking token, or LRT, is the tradable receipt for that position, so you keep liquidity instead of being locked up. rsETH is Kelp's version of that receipt.
Our data shows Kelp holding roughly $1.1B in total value locked on a single chain, with 2 independent audits logged and app latency around 144ms. Its track record in our data is about 2.7 years. That combination of scale and audits earns it 2nd place out of 15 in our liquid restaking category, with a score of 7.56/10.
The appeal of an LRT like rsETH is capital efficiency: your ETH earns base staking rewards, additional restaking rewards, and can still be deployed as collateral or liquidity elsewhere. The catch is that every one of those layers is a place where something can break, and the rewards exist precisely to pay you for taking that stacked risk.
What could go wrong?
- Depeg risk: an LRT can trade below the value of its underlying ETH, especially in stressed markets or if withdrawals are slow.
- Slashing: restaked ETH can be penalized for faults in the services it backs.
- Contract risk: Kelp adds its own smart-contract layer on top of the base restaking protocol.
Who is Kelp a fit for?
It suits DeFi users who want restaking exposure while keeping their position liquid and usable across other protocols. It is less suitable for people who want plain staking with the fewest possible moving parts, or who do not want to monitor peg and withdrawal conditions.
What we do and don't measure
We assess scale, audits, track record (about 2.7 years), reach and latency. We do not record a market cap, and we do not track rsETH's yield or fees, which change over time; confirm those on Kelp's own app.