Frax Ether (sfrxETH) Review

Frax Ether uses two tokens: frxETH, which tracks ETH and earns nothing on its own, and sfrxETH, the vault token that receives the staking yield. In the liquid staking ranking it now scores 6.2 out of 10 on five equally weighted criteria, up from 4.4. The change follows a re-check of Frax's documentation and repositories on 1 November 2026. The July review missed the redemption queue, the audit list and the validator disclosure, and it cited the licence of the wrong repository. The fee split is still the strongest finding. The validators are still run by Frax alone.

How Frax Ether scores in liquid staking

Each criterion is marked 0 to 10 and carries the same 20% weight. The basis is desk research of primary sources, not a test deposit.

The arithmetic: (9 + 6 + 3 + 5 + 8) / 5 = 31 / 5 = 6.2.

What changed: exit and redemption rose from 4 to 6, because the redemption page documents a fee-free queue and how its wait is set. Audit disclosure rose from 2 to 8, because the audit page names three auditors and links four reports. Operator decentralisation rose from 2 to 3, because the specifications name Frax as the operator and publish its validators. Commission clarity is unchanged. The licence mark also stays at 5, but its basis is corrected: the AGPL-3.0 file cited in July belonged to the sFRAX vault repository, not to Frax Ether.

Strongest criteria: the fee split and the audit list

Commission clarity (9). Frax states both the size of its cut and where each part goes. Of 1 ETH in staking income, 0.9 ETH goes to sfrxETH holders, 0.08 ETH to the protocol and 0.02 ETH to the insurance fund. Few entries in the category assign part of the fee to loss coverage; Liquid Collective is the other, and it does not publish its split. The mark matches Stader's 9 for a published split. Minting and redemption carry no Frax fee; gas is extra. Our guide to staking returns after costs shows how a cut like this reduces a headline rate.

Audit disclosure (8). The audit page names the firm, date and scope of each report and links all four, which meets the category's definition of disclosure. It stops one point below Stader, Origin and Mantle (9 each) for a reason stated on the page itself: two of the four reports are by Frax Security Cartel, and the page does not say who that group is. Its independence from Frax cannot be read from the source. The Trail of Bits report also covers several Frax products, not only frxETH, and no report is dated after May 2024.

Weakest criteria: deficiency versus not established

Operator decentralisation (3). This is a measured finding for V1: Frax runs the validators, and entry is closed to outsiders. Publishing each validator's address is more than some peers disclose, which is why the mark sits above Bedrock's 2. frxETH V2 is designed to let outside operators borrow ETH against their own validator pools. Anonymous pools get 24 ETH of credit per 32 ETH, and whitelisted pools up to 31 ETH. The V2 pages give no deployment status, contract addresses or pool count, so the mark does not credit that design. If Frax publishes live V2 pools and their number, this criterion would be re-checked.

Licence & code openness (5). The rubric reads the licence file on the contract repository, and none of the three Frax Ether repositories has one. The source files do declare recognised open-source licences in their headers: the sfrxETH, minter and operator registry contracts use AGPL-3.0-only, and frxETH.sol and the V2 validator pool use GPL-2.0-or-later. That puts Frax between a missing licence (Ankr and Swell, 2) and a repository-level open licence (Stader, Mantle, Origin, Puffer and Bedrock, 10). Business Source licensing, which scores Liquid Collective 4, is more restrictive than this.

Exit & redemption (6). The terms are clear but slow by design. The queue counts the Ethereum entry queue as well as the exit queue, so a redemption can take longer than an ordinary validator exit. No typical duration in days is given. The DEX route is fast but priced by the market. The mark matches Liquid Collective's and Bedrock's queue-only exits and sits below Stader's 7 for a stated 7 to 10 days.

What the score does not cover

• The two-token split. Holding frxETH alone earns nothing; only sfrxETH holders receive the yield. The rubric scores disclosure, not this design.
• Peg. Frax targets 0.99 to 1.01 ETH per frxETH. Market prices were not measured, and a target band is not a guarantee.
• Governance. Frax team members can file optimistic proposals that pass unless token holders vote them down. No criterion scores governance.
• Bridged tokens. Versions on other chains depend on bridges as well as Frax; see how blockchain bridges work.

Frax Ether vs Ankr and Bedrock

The nearest entries in the liquid staking ranking sit either side of Frax Ether. Bedrock's marks are from its own re-check on 1 November 2026; Ankr's were unchanged that day.

Bedrock leads by 0.4 on the strength of a repository-level GPL-3.0 licence; Frax is ahead on the other three criteria where they differ. Frax leads Ankr by 0.4: Ankr's priced instant exit is three points better, but Frax gains three on licence and one each on commission and audits.

Who this rating suits

The score is most useful to a holder who wants to know exactly where the staking fee goes and can wait out a variable queue to redeem at 1:1. It is less suited to someone who needs a fast exit at the redemption rate or wants validators spread across independent operators. The rating describes published terms on one date; it is not a recommendation to stake and does not assess any individual's circumstances.