Puffer Finance issues pufETH, a liquid restaking token for Ethereum. Deposit ETH, receive pufETH, and the underlying stake is restaked for additional rewards while your token remains liquid.
What is Puffer's angle?
Puffer is known for anti-slashing technology intended to reduce the chance that operator mistakes lead to penalties, a genuine concern in restaking where extra slashing conditions apply. Our data records the product on a single chain with about $59.8M in total value locked, a track record near 2.6 years, and fast app latency near 60ms.
Slashing is one of the sharpest edges in restaking: an operator that misbehaves or misconfigures its setup can cause stakers to lose principal, not just rewards. A design that tries to make such penalties harder to trigger addresses a real problem. The honest caveat is that no technical safeguard is perfect, and the safeguard itself is code that must work correctly under pressure.
Risks and an audit gap
Our review did not record a completed third-party audit for this entry. Anti-slashing measures reduce, but do not remove, risk: restaked ETH can still face penalties, pufETH can depeg from the ETH backing it in stressed markets, and additional smart-contract layers add exploit surface. Restaking as a whole is a young, higher-risk category. There is also no public status page in our data.
Who is it for?
- Users who want liquid restaking exposure and value a design focused on limiting slashing.
- Those willing to trade larger scale for a specific technical approach they believe in.
It is not for people who want the largest, most audited option, or who are uncomfortable with peg and contract risk on a smaller protocol. Because our review did not log an audit for this entry, cautious users should treat independent verification of the current contracts as a prerequisite rather than a nice-to-have.
Our rating
Puffer scores 4.92/10 and ranks 11/15 in our liquid restaking category. A multi-year track record and quick latency help, but the absent audit record, single-chain reach and lack of a status page weigh it down. We do not track pufETH's yield, fees or market cap; confirm details on Puffer's app.