Liquid Staking and Restaking Adoption Statistics 2026: Yield Unlocked Now

The liquid-staking category held $39.432 billion in total value locked across all protocols on DefiLlama as of May 2026, with the parallel restaking category at $11.542 billion in total value locked. The numbers below break down DefiLlama’s category-level data on TVL, fees, revenue, and per-protocol leadership across liquid staking and restaking.

Key Takeaways

• The liquid-staking category holds $39.432 billion in total value locked across DefiLlama-tracked protocols as of May 2026.
• The restaking category, separate from liquid staking on DefiLlama, sits at $11.542 billion in total value locked.
• Lido remains the largest liquid-staking protocol, holding $18.964 billion in total value locked across 5 chains.
• EigenCloud, the protocol formerly known as EigenLayer, leads the restaking category with $6.753 billion in total value locked on a single chain.
• Combined 7-day fees across all liquid-staking protocols reached $23.03 million, with 7-day revenue of $2.06 million, indicating substantial pre-revenue take-rate compression.
• The restaking category generated $457,946 in 7-day fees and only $4,571 in 7-day revenue, a striking spread that reflects the post-airdrop maturation phase.

Editor’s Choice

• Liquid staking holds $39.432 billion in TVL, with $23.03 million in 7-day fees and $2.06 million in 7-day revenue, per DefiLlama.
• Restaking sits at $11.542 billion in TVL, generating $457,946 in 7-day fees.
• Lido controls roughly half of the liquid-staking category by TVL on DefiLlama, holding $18.964 billion of the $39.432 billion total.
• EigenCloud controls a majority share of the restaking category by TVL, holding $6.753 billion of the $11.542 billion total.
• Lido’s $9.85 million in 7-day fees account for a large share of all liquid-staking-category 7-day fees at $23.03 million in total.
• EigenCloud’s $420,552 in 7-day fees represent nearly all restaking-category 7-day fees at $457,946 in total.

Recent Developments

• DefiLlama’s May 2026 snapshot shows the liquid-staking category at $39.432 billion in TVL, down sharply from mid-2025 peaks near the $86 billion mark.
• The restaking category stood at $11.542 billion in TVL, down from the $20 billion-plus peak EigenLayer alone reached in mid-2025.
• The protocol formerly known as EigenLayer rebranded to EigenCloud and continues to lead the restaking category with $6.753 billion in TVL on a single chain.
• Lido maintains its leadership of the liquid-staking category with $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, extending its multi-year top position.
• Per DefiLlama’s category-level breakdown, restaking’s 7-day revenue of $4,571 against $457,946 in 7-day fees indicates that node operators and protocol incentives still claim the bulk of the take-rate.

Methodology and Data Sources

All TVL, fee, and revenue figures trace to DefiLlama’s institutional data platform, captured on 2026-05-21. DefiLlama tracks on-chain TVL across more than 30 liquid-staking protocols and 12 restaking protocols, with category aggregates updated continuously and per-protocol breakdowns refreshed at each block.

The figures captured for this snapshot:

• Liquid Staking category: $39.432 billion in TVL, $23.03 million in 7-day fees, and $2.06 million in 7-day revenue, as displayed on the category page.
• Restaking category: $11.542 billion in TVL, $457,946 in 7-day fees, and $4,571 in 7-day revenue.
• Lido protocol: $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, with $9.85 million in 7-day fees.
• EigenCloud protocol: $6.753 billion in TVL on a single chain, with $420,552 in 7-day fees.

The DefiLlama dashboard covers Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and BNB liquid-staking derivatives across its category page. Each protocol’s reported TVL aggregates on-chain balances across all chains the protocol operates on. Source data is refreshed quarterly as the underlying DefiLlama figures evolve.

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Liquid Staking Total Value Locked

• The liquid-staking category holds $39.432 billion in total value locked as of May 2026, per DefiLlama.
• 7-day fees across the category reached $23.03 million, implying an annualized fee run-rate above $1.1 billion.
• 7-day revenue, fees retained by protocols after node-operator splits, totaled $2.06 million, roughly 9% of fees.
• The DefiLlama Liquid Staking Rankings dashboard covers Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and BNB liquid-staking derivatives across protocols, including Lido, Binance Staked ETH, Rocket Pool, Jito, Mantle, Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH, and Frax Ether.
• The category remains the largest single yield-generation segment of DeFi, even after the 2025-2026 retracement.

Source: DefiLlama

What is liquid staking?

Liquid staking deposits a proof-of-stake asset, primarily Ethereum staking, into a protocol that issues a tradable receipt token. The receipt token represents the staked claim and accrues staking rewards while remaining usable as collateral in lending markets, in DEX liquidity pools, and as the basis for restaking. Per the DefiLlama category page, Lido holds the leading position in the Liquid Staking category with $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains.

Restaking Sector Size and EigenCloud

• The restaking category sits at $11.542 billion in total value locked as of May 2026.
• EigenCloud, the rebranded form of EigenLayer, retains the leading position in the Restaking category with $6.753 billion in TVL on 1 chain. Ethereum mainnet.
• The category generated $457,946 in 7-day fees and $4,571 in 7-day revenue.
• DefiLlama’s restaking category ranks EigenCloud, Symbiotic, Karak, Babylon, EtherFi Liquid, Renzo, and Kelp DAO as the named protocols on its category page, with leadership concentrated at the top of that ranking.
• Restaking allows already-staked ETH to provide cryptoeconomic security to additional Actively Validated Services (AVSs), data-availability layers, oracles, and sequencers in exchange for additional yield.

Source: DefiLlama

By the numbers: EigenCloud’s $6.753 billion in TVL represents a majority of the restaking category’s total $11.542 billion per DefiLlama.

How does restaking work?

Restaking layers as an additional security commitment on top of an existing stake. A validator already securing Ethereum can pledge its stake to a restaking protocol like EigenCloud, which holds $6.753 billion in TVL on a single chain and routes cryptoeconomic security to subscribing Actively Validated Services in exchange for additional yield. Restaking yields run higher and more volatile than native staking yields.

Leading Liquid Staking Protocols by TVL

• Lido leads the category with $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, by a wide margin.
• Lido’s 7-day fees of $9.85 million represent a large share of total liquid-staking-category fees at $23.03 million.
• The DefiLlama Liquid Staking ranking shows Lido, Binance Staked ETH, Rocket Pool, Jito, Mantle Staked ETH, Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH, and Frax Ether as the top names by TVL.
• Across all tracked liquid-staking protocols, 7-day revenue summed to $2.06 million against $23.03 million in 7-day fees, a sector-wide revenue capture rate near 9%.
• Jito is the largest liquid-staking protocol on Solana, separate from Lido’s Ethereum-centric position.

Key finding: Lido’s $18.964 billion in TVL out of the liquid-staking category’s $39.432 billion total places it at roughly half of all liquid-staking capital per DefiLlama, a multi-year leadership position that survived the 2025-2026 retracement intact relative to the category as a whole.

Which liquid staking protocol is the largest?

Lido is the largest liquid-staking protocol by every available DefiLlama metric. Its $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains represents roughly half of the entire category total of $39.432 billion, and its $9.85 million in 7-day fees accounts for a large share of the category’s combined $23.03 million in 7-day fees. Lido has held this leadership position continuously across the 2025-2026 retracement.

Per-Protocol TVL Detail Across the Restaking Category

• EigenCloud anchors the category at $6.753 billion in TVL on a single chain, with the next-largest protocols Symbiotic, Karak, Babylon, EtherFi Liquid, Renzo, and Kelp DAO sharing the remainder.
• The category’s combined 7-day fees of $457,946 sit far below the liquid-staking category’s $23.03 million across the same window, reflecting how recently restaking entered its post-airdrop operational phase.
• 7-day revenue across the restaking category totaled $4,571 against the $457,946 in fees, indicating the take-rate retained by protocols remains thin.
• DefiLlama’s restaking category page ranks the major restaking protocols as EigenCloud, Symbiotic, Karak, Babylon, EtherFi Liquid, Renzo, and Kelp DAO, with diversification into non-Ethereum restaking still in its early phase.
• EigenCloud’s 7-day fees of $420,552 represent the bulk of restaking-category fee generation in the captured window.
• The total restaking category TVL of $11.542 billion sits substantially below the liquid-staking category’s $39.432 billion, reflecting the gap between the two segments as of May 2026.

The single-chain concentration of EigenCloud and the broader restaking category contrasts sharply with the liquid-staking category’s multi-chain structure under Lido. The two segments are converging in product offering, but the underlying infrastructure footprints remain distinct as of May 2026.

Per-Protocol TVL Detail Across the Liquid-Staking Category

• Lido holds the leading position with $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, ahead of Binance Staked ETH, Rocket Pool, Jito, Mantle Staked ETH, Coinbase Wrapped Staked ETH, and Frax Ether in DefiLlama’s ranking.
• The category’s combined 7-day fees of $23.03 million anchor an annualized fee run-rate above $1.1 billion.
• 7-day revenue totaled $2.06 million against the $23.03 million in fees, a sector-wide capture rate near 9% that signals the bulk of yield continues to flow through to stakers and validators.
• Lido’s share of category 7-day fees at $9.85 million illustrates how concentrated the fee-generation profile of liquid staking remains in 2026.
• The DefiLlama dashboard captures Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and BNB liquid-staking derivatives in a single category view, the source for every TVL figure cited here.
• Liquid staking’s total TVL of $39.432 billion makes it the largest yield-generating segment in DeFi as of May 2026.
• The category’s annualized fee run-rate, extrapolated from the $23.03 million in 7-day fees, exceeds $1.1 billion per year for the category as a whole.

Yield Performance: Liquid Staking vs Native vs Restaking

• The restaking category’s 7-day revenue of $4,571 against $457,946 in fees indicates that the revenue tail to stakers, after operator and protocol splits, has thinned.
• Liquid-staking 7-day revenue of $2.06 million against $23.03 million in fees yields a sector-wide revenue capture rate near 9%.
• EigenCloud’s restaking-category lead produced $420,552 in 7-day fees, capturing the bulk of fees in the restaking category.
• Lido’s $9.85 million in 7-day fees sit at the top of the liquid-staking ranking.

Regulatory Outlook for Staking-as-a-Service

The SEC‘s crypto enforcement and regulation track record shows the August 2025 Division of Corporation Finance statement on liquid staking as the single largest source of regulatory clarity the sector received that year. The statement clarified when a liquid-staking arrangement falls outside the Howey investment-contract test for the protocol-fee component.

Is liquid staking a security?

The August 2025 SEC Division of Corporation Finance statement indicated that a liquid-staking arrangement where the protocol performs non-managerial functions does not by itself create an investment contract under Howey. The receipt token’s secondary-market trading remains subject to general securities law, but the protocol-level fee mechanism received a non-securities pathway.

Risk Metrics, Slashing, and Protocol Losses

• The restaking category contracted to $11.542 billion in TVL, reflecting the market’s repricing of layered slashing exposure.
• EigenCloud retained the restaking category lead at $6.753 billion in TVL on a single chain through the retracement.
• The Bitcoin restaking ecosystem operates as a separate sub-category outside the EigenCloud-led Ethereum restaking ecosystem.
• Restaking’s $4,571 in 7-day revenue against $457,946 in fees illustrates how thinly the take-rate now spreads across stakers, operators, and the protocol layer.

Adoption Across Blockchain Networks

• The DefiLlama Liquid Staking dashboard tracks Ethereum, Solana, Cosmos, and BNB liquid-staking derivatives across the full category.
• Lido concentrates its $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, with Ethereum mainnet as the largest single chain.
• The Solana network’s liquid-staking ecosystem operates separately on the same DefiLlama category page, with Jito as its leading protocol.
• Cardano‘s ADA staking model uses native delegation rather than the liquid-staking protocol-token model that drives Lido’s TVL.
• Avalanche‘s AVAX validator and subnet staking supports both delegated and direct staking, with liquid-staking protocols accounting for a smaller share of the staked supply.

Common Questions

How much ETH is staked in 2026?

Per DefiLlama’s category-level tracking, Lido alone holds $18.964 billion in TVL across 5 chains, representing the largest single staking-derivative pool on Ethereum. The full liquid-staking category sits at $39.432 billion in total value locked as of May 2026, with 7-day fees of $23.03 million across all tracked protocols. Native validator staking and exchange-custodial staking add to the total beyond DefiLlama’s category scope.

What are the risks of restaking?

Restaking carries three distinct slashing risks layered together: chain-level validator slashing on the underlying chain, smart-contract risk at the restaking-protocol level, and per-AVS slashing exposure. The category’s contraction to $11.542 billion in TVL from above $20 billion at peak reflects the market’s repricing of those layered exposures, with 7-day revenue of $4,571 against $457,946 in 7-day fees illustrating how thinly the take-rate now spreads across stakers, operators, and the protocol layer.

Fee and Revenue Profile Across the Sector

• Liquid staking generated $23.03 million in 7-day fees as of May 2026 per DefiLlama, the highest single-category fee total among on-chain yield-generation segments.
• Liquid-staking 7-day revenue of $2.06 million represents the share of fees retained by protocols after node-operator splits.
• Restaking 7-day fees of $457,946 sit roughly 50x below liquid-staking fees, illustrating the maturity gap between the two categories.
• Restaking 7-day revenue of $4,571 is roughly 100x below liquid-staking revenue, an even larger gap than the fee differential.
• The fee-to-revenue capture rate in liquid staking is roughly 9%, while restaking sits closer to 1% in revenue capture, reflecting the post-airdrop operational phase.
• Lido alone generated $9.85 million in 7-day fees, roughly 43% of the entire liquid-staking-category fee total.
• EigenCloud generated $420,552 in 7-day fees, roughly 92% of the entire restaking-category fee total.

The fee-and-revenue gap between liquid staking and restaking is the clearest quantitative signal of how recently restaking entered its operational phase. The 50x fee gap and 100x revenue gap together suggest restaking remains pre-revenue at the category level, with EigenCloud capturing almost all of what limited fee generation does occur.

Conclusion

Liquid staking holds $39.432 billion in TVL, and restaking holds $11.542 billion in TVL per DefiLlama. Lido and EigenCloud anchor their respective categories, with Lido’s $18.964 billion leading liquid staking and EigenCloud’s $6.753 billion leading restaking. Liquid-staking 7-day fees totaled $23.03 million against 7-day revenue of $2.06 million, a sector-wide capture rate near 9% that signals the bulk of yield continues to flow through to stakers and validators rather than the protocol layer.