Swell Restaking (rswETH) Review

This review grades rswETH, Swell's liquid restaking token, in our liquid restaking ratings. ETH deposited with Swell funds validators restaked on EigenLayer, and the token's ETH value rises as rewards accrue. Swell's earlier liquid staking token is rated separately in our Swell swETH review. The score is desk research from Swell's posts, terms, public code and the token contract, checked on 1 November 2026. Two dated facts frame it: Swell says it is "evolving into Faro", and it shut down its Swellchain layer 2 in June 2026, while stating that rswETH on Ethereum is not affected.

How Swell Restaking scores in liquid restaking

Five criteria, each marked 0 to 10, carry equal weight. The overall score is their plain average: (7 + 3 + 6 + 1 + 6) / 5 = 23 / 5 = 4.6.

Change in this update: exit and redemption fell from 7 to 6 because Swell's published withdrawal estimate is now out of date. It assumes a 7-day EigenLayer delay; EigenLayer's contract now sets about 14 days, and Swell has not revised the figure. The overall score moves from 4.8 to 4.6.

Strongest criteria: commission and exit routes

Commission clarity (7)

Swell's launch post of 29 January 2024 set the fee at 10% of rewards after a 30-day zero-fee start. We read the current values from the rswETH contract on 1 November 2026: the treasury share and the node-operator share were each 5%, a combined 10%, so the published rate and the live setting match. The fee comes out of rewards, not deposits. The mark is held at 7 because the split is not published on a current fee page, and holders of an access-control role can change both values; the code only caps their sum at 100%.

Exit & redemption (6)

Swell's withdrawals post (31 July 2024) describes both exits. A redemption request is minted as an NFT and becomes claimable when ETH is released: 9 to 16 days for the validator exit queue and sweep, plus EigenLayer's delay, for up to about 21 days. A buffer can settle requests in about a day but can run dry under demand. The alternative is selling rswETH on a decentralized exchange at the available price.

That 21-day figure is now out of date. Swell counted EigenLayer's delay as 7 days. On 1 November 2026 EigenLayer's DelegationManager contract returned a minimum withdrawal delay of 100,800 blocks, about 14 days at 12-second blocks. A redemption that waits on a validator exit can therefore take longer than Swell's published estimate, and Swell has not updated it. Market exits are also thin: the token contract reported a supply of about 10,644 rswETH on the same date. Both routes are still described, which keeps the mark at 6, in line with other entries whose exit depends on liquidity; the stale estimate is what cost the seventh point.

Weakest criteria: licence and slashing

Licence & code openness (1) is a measured deficiency. The source can be read on GitHub, which keeps the mark above zero, but no licence is granted: the repository has no LICENSE file and the contract header says "UNLICENSED". By default that reserves all rights. The contract also sits behind an upgradeable proxy, so whoever controls the proxy admin can replace its logic.

Slashing & risk disclosure (3) is a gap in what Swell publishes, not in what we checked. Restaking exposes validators to slashing by the services they secure, on top of Ethereum's own penalties, and EigenLayer now allows slashing for operators who opt into services that use it. Swell's rswETH pages do not say which services the stake secures, how a slash would be absorbed, or whether holders share the loss. The product page still says rswETH restakes to "secure Swell L2", a network that stopped taking deposits in May 2026. Our guide to staking returns after costs explains why slashing and exit time belong in any yield comparison.

Audit disclosure (6) sits in the middle. Sigma Prime's assessments of the restaking contracts are public, which is real disclosure, but they come from a single firm.

What the score does not cover

• The Faro transition. Swell has not said what Faro means for rswETH in the longer term. That is a business-direction question the criteria do not grade.
• Access. Swell's terms list liquid restaking of ETH, swETH and rswETH as restricted services that US persons may not use. Availability does not enter the score.
• Yield and token price. Neither is a criterion. On 1 November 2026 the contract rate was about 1.0828 ETH per rswETH.
• SWELL token. Governance and the Fee Flow auctions, which burn SWELL, are outside this rating.

Swell Restaking vs the closest rated peers

Scores are as published on 1 November 2026. Swell is eighth of nine: Kelp DAO is 0.8 points ahead and Eigenpie 1.0 behind. EigenLayer, the restaking layer rswETH uses, scores 6.6, and Renzo leads at 7.6. The licence mark of 1 is the main drag: the other four marks alone average 5.5.

Who this rating suits

The score is most useful to readers outside the United States who already hold or are weighing rswETH and want to know what Swell publishes on fees and exits. It is a weak fit for anyone who needs open-source code or a clear account of slashing exposure. A 4.6 measures disclosure, not safety, and is not a recommendation; the rules are set out in our methodology.