Glossary
Plain definitions for core restaking terms. Strictly mechanical; not financial advice.
Staking
Locking native cryptocurrency (like ETH) in a base consensus contract to validate blocks on a Proof-of-Stake blockchain in exchange for network rewards and transaction fees.
Liquid Staking
Pooling funds into smart contracts that stake the assets and issue a transferable receipt token, keeping capital tradable while the underlying tokens earn consensus rewards.
Liquid Staking Token (LST)
A receipt token (such as stETH or rETH) issued by a liquid staking protocol that trades on secondary markets and represents a claim on deposited validator stake.
Restaking
Re-using bonded validator capital or receipt tokens that already secure a base blockchain to back additional decentralized applications at the same time.
Token Restaking
Using a staked token or its receipt to help secure extra services. Extra rewards are rent for taking on secondary slashing, lockup, operator, and smart contract risks.
Liquid Restaking Token (LRT)
A receipt token issued by a pooling protocol that takes user deposits, delegates them to operators across multiple services, and packages that exposure into a single transferable token.
Actively Validated Service (AVS)
Any off-chain service or auxiliary decentralized network (such as an oracle feed, bridge, data availability layer, or coprocessor) that borrows restaked capital to back its validation rules.
Operator
An entity running server hardware and client software to validate one or more services on behalf of restakers who delegate capital to them.
Slashing
A programmatic penalty that burns a portion of a validator's or delegator's locked tokens when an operator breaches protocol or service rules.
Unbonding
The mandatory waiting period before withdrawn tokens unlock and return to a user's wallet, ensuring time to catch and penalize past rule violations.
Exit Queue
A waiting line for withdrawals when the rate of unbonding requests exceeds the per-epoch processing speed of the underlying consensus protocol or vault.
Depeg
A market event where the exchange price of a receipt token drops below the value of the underlying assets it represents.
EigenLayer / EigenCloud
A smart-contract restaking protocol on Ethereum that enables validators and LST holders to delegate their bonded ETH to secure auxiliary software services.
Babylon-Style BTC Restaking
A protocol allowing Bitcoin holders to lock UTXOs on the Bitcoin blockchain using timelocks and extractable one-time signatures (EOTS) to secure Proof-of-Stake chains without bridging.
Symbiotic-Style Vaults
A modular restaking framework on Ethereum that allows arbitrary ERC-20 tokens to be deposited into isolated vaults with custom slashing resolver contracts.