Best Liquid Staking Protocols
Top rated: Lido 8.2
Staking that hands you a tradable receipt token.
4rated →
6.6/10
Liquid Restaking
Company file: Renzo, owners, incidents →
Renzo
Makes restaking approachable by picking the operators and services for you, which means you are trusting someone else’s choices. The April 2024 ezETH de-peg shows what a closed exit does under pressure. TVL has fallen about 97%, from $4.05B in May 2024 to about $125.5M (27 Sep 2026).
Best for: Restaking without choosing operators, if you can wait out a withdrawal
Company file: Renzo, owners, incidents →How this score was reached
6.6 is the weighted average of the five pillar findings below. Works, but something here costs you — money, control or certainty.
- Custody & Security35%
- 7.0
- Cost & Fee Transparency15%
- 7.4
- Regulation & Legal Standing5%
- 5.8
- Performance & Reliability35%
- 5.6
- Access & Support10%
- 7.6
Non-custodial and audited, but Renzo picks the operators and AVSs, so the layered slashing exposure is not transparent at deposit time.
10% of restaking rewards, split between treasury and node operators; EigenLayer rewards passed through. The effective yield is harder to establish than the headline suggests.
Unlicensed with governance still concentrated in the founding team.
ezETH fell as much as 78% below its backing on some venues on 24 April 2024, when the protocol had no redemption route, and liquidations followed. Withdrawals are open now but take about 7 days, or 10–15 if the buffer is empty. TVL is about $125.5M across 13 chains, down about 97% from the May 2024 peak, so market exit depth is thin.
Simple interface with multi-chain access; slow withdrawals mean an exit has to be planned ahead.
Strengths
- An approachable entry point into restaking
- Multi-chain access without managing operator selection
- Protocol withdrawals now open (7–15 days)
Against it
- ezETH de-pegged sharply in April 2024 while redemptions were closed
- TVL down about 97% from the 2024 peak; market exits are thin
- Operator selection is abstracted away, so you are trusting someone else’s risk choices
What thin exit liquidity looks like
On 24 April 2024 ezETH fell as much as 78% below its backing on some venues, and lending markets that accepted it as collateral liquidated positions. The cause was not insolvency: the protocol had no withdrawal function yet, so holders wanting out had no route except the DEX market. We found no record of Renzo compensating users who were liquidated or sold at the low.
Withdrawals are open now but take about 7 days, or 10–15 if the buffer is empty, and TVL has fallen about 97% from $4.05B in May 2024 to about $125.5M. Renzo picks operators and services for you, which makes restaking approachable and means you are trusting somebody else’s risk choices without seeing them.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Renzo in April 2024?+
After the REZ allocation was published on 24 April 2024, holders rushed to sell ezETH, but the protocol offered no redemption. ezETH traded as much as 78% below its backing on some venues and liquidated leveraged positions. The price recovered within days. It is the clearest illustration in this category of why an open exit matters more than a quoted price.
How long does a Renzo withdrawal take?+
About 7 days if the withdrawal buffer holds assets, 10–15 days if it is empty (beacon-chain exit, the 14-day EigenLayer delay and Renzo’s own buffer). Plan any exit ahead of a sell-off, not during one.
Renzo or ether.fi?+
ether.fi: far larger, more thoroughly audited, and its eETH now carries plain staking rewards with restaking opt-in, where ezETH is restaked on EigenLayer through operators Renzo chooses. Renzo covers more chains.
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 Renzo, 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
- 03Renzo — you are hereRestaking without choosing operators, if you can wait out a withdrawal6.6
Related tables
How we score →Independent, rubric-scored tables for the services behind this story.
Best Crypto Staking Platforms
Top rated: Kraken Staking 8.0
Services that stake on your behalf.
5rated →
Best DeFi Protocols
Top rated: Uniswap Protocol 8.9
The base layer everything else is built on.
4rated →