Best Liquid Staking Protocols

Best liquid staking tokens by use case

• You want to know exactly where the fee goes and can wait about a week to exit: Stader ETHx. It publishes a 5% protocol and 5% operator split (commission clarity 9) and runs a permissionless operator pool alongside a whitelisted one (operator decentralisation 9). Unstaking typically takes 7 to 10 days, with no instant route (exit 7).
• You stake SOL and want a priced choice between a fast and a slow exit: Jito JitoSOL, the only Solana entry. An instant swap through Jupiter, with slippage Jito puts typically under 0.3%, or a direct unstake for 0.1% that waits up to one epoch, about two days (exit 9).
• You want open operator entry on Ethereum and a priced instant exit: Puffer pufETH. Anyone can run a validator with a 2 ETH bond (operators 9), and withdrawals are instant for 1% or free in around 14 days (exit 9). The protocol fee percentage is not published (commission 3), and pufETH is also restaked through EigenLayer.
• You want the longest audit list and a fee-free redemption queue: Mantle mETH, with 16 listed audits from eight firms (audit 9) and no withdrawal fee (exit 8). Its terms exclude US persons, and five permissioned firms run its validators (operators 6).
• You want part of the fee set aside for losses: Frax Ether, whose FIP-122 split sends 8% of staking income to the protocol and 2% to an insurance fund (commission 9). Validators are run by Frax alone (operators 3).
• You stake through a platform with KYC checks: Liquid Collective LsETH, with six named operators and ten linked audits (audit 9). Minting and redeeming are limited to allowlisted wallets.

Swell swETH is not listed for any use case. Its deposits were paused on 1 November 2026 after an unexplained jump in the swETH-to-ETH rate on 22 October; withdrawals were open that day.

How the ranking works

Every token is marked 0 to 10 on five criteria from the published liquid staking rubric. Each counts for 20%:

• Commission clarity: a fee stated as a figure scores well; a published split between protocol, operators and any insurance fund scores best.
• Exit & redemption: a stated unbonding queue and fee beat vague withdrawal language; a priced instant route alongside a fee-free standard route scores highest.
• Operator decentralisation: permissionless entry scores highest, a named permissioned set scores mid-scale, and a single operator or an unnamed one scores low.
• Licence & code openness: read from the licence file in the contract repository. A recognised open-source licence scores 10; a missing licence file scores lowest, because published code with no grant reserves every right.
• Audit disclosure: reports published with the firms named. A claim of audits by unnamed firms is not disclosure.

The overall score is the plain average of the five marks, rounded to one decimal. Stader's marks of 9, 7, 9, 10 and 9 total 44, and 44 divided by 5 is 8.8. Ties are listed alphabetically, which is why Bedrock appears above Liquid Collective at 6.6. Every mark was checked against primary sources on 1 November 2026: documentation, GitHub repositories and, where documentation was unreachable, the contracts on Ethereum. The basis is desk research, not test deposits or withdrawals. Marks are re-checked on each update, and each review logs what changed and why. The full method is on our ratings methodology page.

What changed in this update

Eight of the ten scores moved in the November 2026 re-check, and the order changed. Most rises correct findings the July check missed, such as a licence file or an audit list that already existed. Origin's fall reflects a change in its own documentation.

Token	Now	July 2026	What moved
Stader (ETHx)	8.8	8.8	No change; same fee, exit, operators, licence and audits
Jito (JitoSOL)	8.6	7.8	Audit 4 to 8: the deployed programs page names Quantstamp, Neodyme and Kudelski
Mantle (mETH)	8.2	6.6	Licence 2 to 10: an MIT licence in a file spelled LICENCE
Puffer (pufETH)	7.8	6.6	Audit 3 to 8 (six firms in the repository README); exit 8 to 9
Origin Ether (OETH)	7.6	8.4	Operators 7 to 3: validators now run on one named provider, MAVAN
Bedrock (uniETH)	6.6	5.0	Licence 2 to 10: docs now link a GPL-3.0 repository
Liquid Collective (LsETH)	6.6	4.8	Audit 3 to 9, operators 4 to 6, commission 7 to 8
Frax Ether (sfrxETH)	6.2	4.4	Audit 2 to 8, exit 4 to 6, operators 2 to 3
Ankr (ankrETH)	5.8	5.8	No change
Swell (swETH)	4.4	2.8	Commission 2 to 5, exit 2 to 4, audit 2 to 5, read from contracts and code

Origin Ether drops from second to fifth. Its July marks credited two SSV distributed-validator clusters; its documentation now names MAVAN as the provider that operates the validator infrastructure, which the rubric scores as a single operator. Two marks rose for consistency rather than new evidence: Puffer's exit now matches Ankr's 9 for the same priced-instant plus fee-free pattern, and Liquid Collective's commission matches the 8 given to other unsplit 10% fees. Swell stays last. Its documentation site refused our requests, so its fee, queue and audit marks come from the swETH contract and Swell's public code, and both deposits and withdrawals were paused from 23 to 31 October. No service was withdrawn from the ranking.

What the scores do not cover

• Yield and market price. No criterion marks the reward rate, and the secondary-market price of each token was not measured. A token can trade below its redemption value when liquidity is thin.
• Upgrade control. Governance is not scored. Mantle's contracts upgrade through a timelock whose default delay is zero; Puffer's community multisig can bypass its 7-day timelock.
• Slashing and loss cover. Origin describes no insurance. Liquid Collective describes three layers of slashing coverage but publishes neither the caps nor the treasury balance. Stader and Swell pay redemptions at the lower of two rates, so a penalty during the wait reduces the payout.
• Restaking exposure. pufETH and uniETH are restaked through EigenLayer, which adds slashing conditions this rubric does not score. Those designs are compared in the liquid restaking ranking.
• Access. Mantle, Bedrock and Swell exclude US persons in their terms, and LsETH requires an allowlisted, KYC-checked wallet.
• Incidents. Ankr's BNB staking token was exploited in December 2022 and Bedrock's uniBTC vault in September 2024. Neither account says the ETH tokens ranked here were affected, and incident history is not a criterion.
• Other protocols. Using a receipt token as collateral adds that protocol's risk. Drift's April 2026 incident update lists about 33,977 jitoSOL among the stolen funds.

How to choose a liquid staking token

1. Find the fee as a percentage of rewards. Rates in this ranking run from Jito's 4% to Origin's 20% performance fee, and Puffer publishes none.
2. Read the exit terms: the queue length, whether rewards stop on request, which exchange rate applies, and the price of any instant route.
3. Check who runs the validators and whether others can join.
4. Check the terms of use for your country and any KYC requirement before you deposit.
5. Open the latest audit and note its date and scope. Several lists stop in 2023 or 2024.
6. Check the protocol's status page or official channels for pauses before minting or redeeming.
7. Work out what reaches you after commission, slashing and exit costs; our guide to staking returns after costs shows the arithmetic.

What is liquid staking?

Liquid staking deposits your ETH or SOL with a protocol that stakes it and gives you a receipt token. The token keeps earning staking rewards while you can still hold, sell or use it elsewhere. Some receipts are value-accruing: the quantity stays fixed and each token becomes redeemable for more of the underlying, as with ETHx and JitoSOL. Others rebase: the balance grows while each token aims to stay worth about one unit, as with OETH, whose wOETH wrapper holds a fixed quantity instead. The receipt is backed by the staked assets, but its market price can still drift, so the native redemption route is the backstop that matters.

Is a liquid staking token the same as staking directly?

No. Direct staking leaves you exposed to the network's validator rules and exit queue. A liquid staking token adds the protocol's smart contracts, its operator choices, its fee and its upgrade controls on top. In return you get a transferable token and, with some protocols, a faster exit than the network's own queue. The five criteria above are the disclosures that let you weigh that trade.