Kelp DAO Restaked ETH

Kelp DAO Restaked ETH (RSETH) is a cryptocurrency launched in 2023. It functions as a Liquid Restaked Token (LRT) engineered specifically to mirror positions on EigenLayer, the restaking middleware for Ethereum.

The core mechanism resolves a persistent friction in decentralized finance: the static illiquidity of assets locked inside restaking contracts. By issuing a fungible ERC-20 receipt, Kelp DAO allows depositors to maintain liquid exposure to restaked ETH while simultaneously deploying that value across lending, trading, and yield strategies. This dual utility collapses the historical trade-off between security contributions and capital mobility.

RSETH operates on the Ethereum network. It does not maintain its own consensus layer, instead inheriting finality from the base chain’s validator set.

The token adheres to the ERC-20 standard, guaranteeing immediate compatibility with wallets, custody infrastructure, and smart contract protocols. Kelp DAO has extended its contract footprint well beyond mainnet—deploying on Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, Linea, Mode, and over a dozen additional environments—creating a natively cross-chain liquid restaking primitive. This multiplication of issuance surfaces eliminates the need for third-party bridges in many cases, reducing trust assumptions and allowing RSETH to integrate directly with chain-specific decentralized exchanges and money markets.

Kelp DAO launched the RSETH token in December of 2023, capitalizing on a wave of capital inflows into EigenLayer’s restaking primitive. The protocol arose from a decentralized collective with no publicly attributed individual founders and rapidly carved out a position as one of the earliest liquid restaking solutions. Integration agreements across multiple rollup ecosystems accelerated its early adoption, reflecting an intense market demand for restaked liquidity vehicles that could move freely across the modular Ethereum landscape.

The driving ambition beneath the surface mechanics is not merely incremental yield. Kelp DAO seeks to rehypothecate illiquid staking deposits into the composable fabric of DeFi without breaking the security guarantees of the underlying restaking protocol. In that vision, RSETH becomes a fully portable settlement asset—deepening order book liquidity on decentralized exchanges, serving as a base collateral type on lending markets, and absorbing capital that would otherwise sit idle inside a node operator contract.

Mechanically, the token is minted when a user deposits any whitelisted liquid staking derivative or native ETH into the Kelp DAO restaking aggregator. Each RSETH represents a fractional claim on a diversified basket of restaked positions managed by the protocol, with rewards accumulating continually in the net asset value rather than via a direct rebase. Redemption of the underlying assets requires burning RSETH through the platform’s withdrawal queue, maintaining a hard structural link between the circulating supply and the total value locked.

Validators interact with the system indirectly: Kelp DAO allocates deposited capital to curated EigenLayer node operators, while the token holder remains abstracted from operational overhead. On the application layer, market makers supply RSETH to automated market maker pools on exchanges to capture fee-based yields, while borrowers lock it as collateral on lending protocols to originate stablecoin debt. Delegators also stake the token within partner networks to earn additional protocol emissions without impairing base restaking rewards.

Kelp DAO Restaked ETH has a total supply of 629,689.36 tokens. Currently, 629,689.36 are in circulation. With a market capitalization of $1,422,451,934.00, Kelp DAO Restaked ETH ranks #8,301 among all cryptocurrencies.