The StakeWise Protocol

StakeWise is a liquid staking protocol for Ethereum and Gnosis Chain, designed to make staking more flexible, secure, and accessible. Anyone can start staking. There is no minimum ETH/GNO deposit, no validator node to run, and no technical setup required.

Instead of one large staking pool, StakeWise is built around Vaults: permissionless, customizable, and non-custodial staking pools deployed by various operators. Vaults already secure hundreds of millions of US dollars' worth of staked assets, powering solutions from MetaMask ↗, Chorus One ↗, Blockchain.com ↗, Ledger Live ↗, and others.

Stakers choose the exact terms on which they stake, and can mint osToken, StakeWise's liquid staking token, to put their stake to work across the DeFi ecosystem ↗ and earn more on top of their staking rewards. StakeWise also develops strategies to increase rewards, such as Boost on Ethereum, with more coming soon.

The protocol is implemented with two types of smart contracts:

• Upgradable contracts — the Vaults themselves — keep the protocol current with Ethereum's proof-of-stake specification. Upgrades are never automatic: a new Vault version must first be approved through StakeWise DAO governance, and it applies to a Vault only after its Admin explicitly opts in.
• Non-upgradable contracts — the shared infrastructure every Vault plugs into, such as the Vault registry, the Keeper, and osToken accounting — have no upgrade path: once deployed on-chain, their code can never be changed. The same rules therefore apply to every Vault, and no intermediary can rewrite them or selectively restrict access to the service.