Unit 1 · Level 5 · Staking & restaking
Unit review: yield with eyes open
Staking yield = issuance + fees, kept honest by slashing. LSTs make stake liquid but add depeg and pool risk. Restaking reuses the same collateral for extra yield and extra slashing rulebooks. And custody decides everything: the best yield in the world is worthless if someone else holds your keys when the music stops.
Free to play. No ads, no token, no account needed to start.
What you get asked
Strip away the branding: what actually pays a proof-of-stake validator?
Issuance plus fees. If someone claims a third source, they're describing a different product, or hiding something.
stETH trading 5-7% below ETH in June 2022 was a classic LST ___.
The backing never vanished; the market price of the receipt did. Liquidity risk shows up precisely when everyone runs for the same exit.
Order these staking setups from FEWEST stacked risks to MOST
Each step inherits everything before it and adds a layer: pool risk, then extra slashing rules, then unaudited code chasing speculative points.
Your friend: 'I restaked through three protocols and I'm earning 14%. It's still just ETH staking underneath.' Best graduate reply?
Layered protocols multiply failure modes; the 14% is the market pricing exactly that. 'It's still just X underneath' is how every stacked-risk blowup gets sold.
The one-line habit this unit installs: whenever you see yield, you ask...
Source of yield, stack of risks, holder of keys: run those three checks and most bad deals disqualify themselves. Off to tokenized treasuries next, where the yield source is a government. 🐜
The rest of this unit
Where staking yield really comes from, and what happens when you stack risk on top of it.