Unit 1 · Level 5 · Staking & restaking
Restaking: stacked risk
Restaking, popularised by EigenLayer from 2023, lets staked ETH do double duty: the same stake that secures Ethereum also secures other services (oracles, bridges, new networks) in exchange for extra yield. Billions flowed in fast. The honest framing: you are pledging the same collateral to more than one set of rules, and each new rulebook is a new way to get slashed.
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What you get asked
What is restaking, in one sentence?
Restaking reuses the security of an existing stake. Same capital, more jobs, more yield, and more ways to lose it.
Why can restaking yield be HIGHER than plain staking yield?
Each service pays you because you're underwriting its failures. Extra yield is the price of extra risk. Forget that, and you're selling insurance without reading the policy.
Restaking stacks risk: one pot of collateral can now be ___ under several different rulebooks.
Plain staking has one slashing regime. Restaked collateral answers to every service it secures, so the failure modes add up.
Match each layer of the stack to the risk it adds
Each layer keeps every risk beneath it and adds its own. By layer three you're holding a receipt of a receipt with three ways to be slashed.
A protocol advertises: 'Earn 12% by restaking your stETH. It's the same safe ETH staking, just better.' What's wrong with that pitch?
'Same thing, more yield' is never true. The extra 8-9 points are payment for depeg risk, contract risk, and new slashing conditions. Price the whole stack, not the headline. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Where staking yield really comes from, and what happens when you stack risk on top of it.