ether.fi has removed all restaking exposure from weETH, turning its flagship asset into a plain liquid staking token and limiting restaking to weETHs, a separate token built on Symbiotic. The protocol disclosed the split on X on Thursday.
The change unwinds the product structure that made ether.fi the largest business built around EigenLayer’s restaking model. The protocol had combined Ethereum staking yield and EigenLayer restaking exposure inside a single token, scaled quickly on that pitch through 2024, and has now separated the two. Users who still want restaking exposure now need to opt into a second token.
DefiLlama data shows ether.fi’s staking arm holds $3.3 billion, making it the largest liquid restaking protocol and the third-largest platform across liquid staking and restaking, behind Lido and Binance staked ETH. It previously peaked at $12.43 billion in August 2025.
There are 1.72 million weETH in circulation. By contrast, weETHs — the token ether.fi is directing restakers toward — has a supply of 9,136 tokens worth roughly $18 million, or about 0.5% of the protocol’s staking base.
“End of an era”
ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze quote-posted the announcement and wrote, “End of an era. Sad.”
He added, “I still think restaking will come back in one form or another, I think it was just a bit too early.”
In a follow-up reply to the original post, ether.fi said current holders “now have a clearer choice between basic staking exposure and additional restaking exposure depending on your goals,” and that for new users the split “simply makes the EtherFi stack easier to understand.”
At press time, neither Eigen Labs, the company behind EigenLayer, nor Symbiotic had commented publicly.
Onchain wind-down came before the announcement
The reduction had already happened onchain before Thursday’s post. ether.fi’s own slashing risk documentation says that as of August 2026, “less than 1% of ether.fi's assets remain restaked with EigenLayer, down from about half in early 2026.”
The same page says the remaining restaked share is expected to reach zero in the third quarter of 2026. It also says ether.fi plans to “completely remove EigenPod withdrawal credentials from its validators by Q4 2026, eliminating the protocol's last structural link to EigenLayer.”
ether.fi has not published a separate blog post laying out the reasoning behind the decision. Its only post on Thursday covered an unrelated weETH security review, and the latest thread on its governance forum dates back to November 2025. One reply under the announcement asked whether there were “any forum/posts or discussions why eigen was taken out of loop?” At the same time, parts of ether.fi documentation still describe eETH and weETH as tokens that automatically restake on EigenLayer.
Risk is no longer bundled, but it is not gone
ether.fi said the split leaves “no bundled risk.”
Still, the documentation for weETHs says a portion of its collateral is allocated to Cap Protocol. There, M11 Credit borrows against that collateral and deposits the proceeds into a Pareto vault, which supplies capital to FalconX’s prime brokerage operation.
The documents list several risks by name: slashing risk, FalconX counterparty risk, M11 Credit default risk, smart contract risk across Cap and Pareto, and liquidity risk. They also tell depositors that weETHs “is no longer solely exposed to Symbiotic restaking risk.”
Restaking continues to shrink
DefiLlama data shows EigenCloud, the platform that now houses EigenLayer, holds $5.10 billion, down from a peak of $22.06 billion on Aug. 14, 2025. Symbiotic holds $342.8 million, versus a December 2024 peak of $2.70 billion. Ether changes hands at $1,906.
Liquid restaking has been contracting since December 2024, when deposits across the sector topped out at $18.3 billion before falling as points and airdrop incentives faded.
Related tokens remain under pressure
CoinGecko data shows ETHFI trades at $0.36, down 3.2% over the past 24 hours and 11.4% over the last week, with a market capitalization of $346 million. The token reached $8.53 in March 2024.
EIGEN trades at $0.18, down 3.2% on the day and 20.8% over the past 30 days, with a market capitalization of $133 million. CoinGecko data shows its high was $5.65 in December 2024.