Best Liquid Staking Protocols
Top rated: Lido 8.2
Staking that hands you a tradable receipt token.
4rated →
7.5/10
Liquid Restaking
Company file: ether.fi, owners, incidents →
EtherFi
Behind eETH and weETH, about $5.59B TVL (27 Sep 2026). Per ether.fi's current docs, eETH and weETH now earn plain Ethereum staking rewards; restaking is a separate, optional product. Both 2026 incidents came from the surface around weETH (Liquid vaults, old approvals), not the staking contracts.
Best for: Widely accepted staked ETH from a team that publishes its incidents
Company file: ether.fi, owners, incidents →How this score was reached
7.5 is the weighted average of the five pillar findings below. Dependable, with trade-offs a reader should know about first.
- Custody & Security35%
- 7.6
- Cost & Fee Transparency15%
- 7.6
- Regulation & Legal Standing5%
- 6.0
- Performance & Reliability35%
- 7.4
- Access & Support10%
- 8.0
45+ audit reports from 10+ firms since Feb 2023, the latest staking review by Certora in Jun 2026. The staking contracts have not been exploited. On 11 Sep 2026 a retired Veda AtomicQueue helper drained about $43K from wallets with old approvals; ether.fi says it will reimburse in full, with no payouts published by 27 Sep 2026.
10% of staking rewards (5% to node operators, 5% to the treasury), set out in the Terms of Use pricing appendix.
Operated by Ether.Fi SEZC, a Cayman Islands special economic zone company; services are closed to residents of Canada.
The exit path was tested on 18 Apr 2026: after the Kelp rsETH bridge exploit ether.fi paused all Liquid vaults (deposits, withdrawals and bridging) for about a day, and fewer than 8 withdrawals failed. The pause covered the Liquid vaults, not eETH redemptions, and weETH stayed fully backed. TVL is down from a $12.79B peak in Aug 2025.
Good documentation, detailed public incident notes, and weETH accepted almost everywhere in DeFi.
Strengths
- eETH/weETH carry plain staking rewards; restaking is opt-in
- 45+ published audits and detailed incident write-ups
- weETH is accepted almost everywhere in DeFi
Against it
- Liquid vault withdrawals paused for about a day on 18 Apr 2026
- Sep 2026 legacy-approval exploit (~$43K); reimbursement promised, not yet shown
- Surface area keeps growing: vaults, bridges on many chains, a card business
Closer to liquid staking than it used to be
ether.fi's current docs say eETH and weETH earn plain Ethereum staking rewards, with no bundled restaking rewards or EigenLayer slashing exposure; restaking is a separate, optional product. It holds far more ETH than Renzo or Puffer, has 45+ published audit reports, and weETH is accepted almost everywhere in DeFi.
The risk has moved to the surface around weETH. On 18 Apr 2026, after the Kelp rsETH bridge exploit, ether.fi paused every Liquid vault for about a day and hardened its weETH bridges. On 11 Sep 2026 a retired Veda AtomicQueue helper drained about $43K from wallets that still approved it; ether.fi says it will reimburse in full, and no payouts had been published by 27 Sep 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Does weETH carry EigenLayer slashing risk?+
According to ether.fi’s current documentation, no: eETH and weETH earn plain Ethereum staking rewards, and restaking is a separate optional product with its own risks.
Has ether.fi’s withdrawal path been tested?+
Yes, in April 2026. After the Kelp rsETH bridge exploit on 18 Apr 2026 ether.fi paused all Liquid vaults for about a day; fewer than 8 withdrawals failed and were expedited, and weETH stayed fully backed. The pause covered the Liquid vaults, not eETH itself.
What happened on 11 September 2026?+
A withdrawal helper retired about a year earlier let an attacker pull liquidETH, USDC and sETHFI from wallets that still approved it and used smart-wallet software accepting unknown callbacks. Operator denylists closed it within about three hours. ether.fi says affected users will be repaid in full; we had not seen the reimbursement transactions by 27 Sep 2026. Revoke old approvals.
Assessed by
By Emily Volker
Editor-in-Chief · September 27, 2026
◆ Disclosure
CoinRadar Daily is a non-commercial project. We have no commercial relationship with EtherFi, earn nothing from any link on this page, and carry no advertising or sponsorship anywhere on the site. Findings rest on public sources; we did not open an account or transact.
Rubric v2.0How we score →
The rest of the liquid restaking table
- 01EtherFi — you are hereWidely accepted staked ETH from a team that publishes its incidents7.5
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