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Crypto DeFi

Ether.fi Exits Core Restaking as Sector Fees Dwindle

Ether.fi is winding down its core restaking business and pivoting to a crypto neobank model as restaking yields dry up and smart-contract risk rises. Restaking protocols held about $10.02 billion in deposits on September 8 but generated only roughly $99,977 in fees over the past week, versus $51.87 billion and $27.35 million for liquid staking. Excluding ether.fi, five liquid restaking protocols posted combined gross profit of about $953,000 in Q2 2026, down from $2.18 million across the prior three quarters.

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AI take

The numbers make the strategic logic plain: restaking has accumulated meaningful deposits but converts almost none of that into fees, so the model's economics never caught up with its TVL. Ether.fi's exit is less a verdict on restaking itself than on running it as a standalone business, and it puts pressure on the remaining liquid restaking protocols to justify their own fee take against rising smart-contract risk. Whether the neobank pivot attracts users who came for yield, and whether the restaking fee base stabilizes, are the open questions.

Generated by AI for reference only.

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