Restaking in 2026 is no longer an Ethereum-only story. EigenLayer — rebranded EigenCloud in June 2025 — still dominates with roughly $4.9B in TVL as of July 2026 (DefiLlama), but Babylon has built a ~$2.6B market for self-custodial Bitcoin staking, and Symbiotic (~$320M) competes on Ethereum with a permissionless multi-asset design. Jito Restaking brings the model to Solana, while original pick Karak pivoted away: it rebranded to OpenGDP in late 2025 and its restaking deposits have shrunk to roughly $6.5M.
The sector matured sharply in 2025: EigenLayer switched on slashing in April, Symbiotic shipped its feature-complete mainnet in January, and Babylon launched its BTC-secured Genesis chain in April. Rankings below reflect current TVL first, then audit depth and delivery through 2025–2026.
How we picked
- Current TVL from DefiLlama, fetched July 12, 2026.
- Audit history from official security pages and audit repositories (firm names, with dates where published).
- Slashing and security model — whether the protocol has shipped real slashing, and how stake is isolated.
- 2025–2026 delivery — dated, verifiable launches rather than roadmap promises.
Comparison table (July 2026)
| Protocol | TVL (Jul 2026) | Base chain | Audits | Key mechanism |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EigenLayer | ~$4.9B | Ethereum | Certora, Sigma Prime, Cantina, ConsenSys Diligence | ETH/LST restaking for AVSs; opt-in slashing (live Apr 2025) |
| Babylon | ~$2.6B | Bitcoin | Coinspect, Zellic | Self-custodial BTC staking via timelock scripts |
| Symbiotic | ~$320M | Ethereum | OpenZeppelin, Statemind, Certora, Zellic, Sigma Prime, Cyfrin + others | Permissionless ERC-4626 vaults, any ERC-20 collateral, custom slashing |
| Jito Restaking | ~$14.5M | Solana | OtterSec, Certora, Offside | Multi-asset SPL staking; VRT vaults secure NCNs |
| Karak (now OpenGDP) | ~$6.5M | Ethereum + L2s | Code4rena | ERC-4626 vaults; operators allocate to DSSs; pivoted to L1 |
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#1
EigenLayer
~$4.9B TVL (Jul 2026)
Pioneer restaking protocol. Lets ETH and LST holders restake to secure Actively Validated Services (AVSs) such as EigenDA, bridges, and oracles in exchange for rewards.
The official contracts repo carries audits from ConsenSys Diligence (2023), Sigma Prime and Cantina (2024) and Certora (2025 slashing release). Slashing went live on mainnet April 17, 2025 — opt-in, with Unique Stake Allocation earmarking stake so only one AVS can slash it, and Operator Sets grouping operators per task; at that launch EigenLayer counted about 190 AVSs in development and 2,000+ operators. In June 2025 Eigen Labs introduced EigenCloud, a platform layer (EigenDA, EigenVerify, EigenCompute) on top of EigenLayer, backed by a $70M EIGEN purchase from a16z crypto; DefiLlama now lists the protocol under that name.
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#2
Babylon
~$2.6B TVL (Jul 2026)
Bitcoin staking protocol: BTC is locked in self-custodial Bitcoin staking scripts and delegated to finality providers, extending Bitcoin-backed security to other chains without bridging or wrapping.
Babylon's phase-1 mainnet (August 2024) filled its initial 1,000-BTC cap within six blocks; staked coins stay in a timelock script — never transferred to the finality provider — with locks up to 64,000 Bitcoin blocks and on-demand unbonding after 1,008. Audit PDFs from Coinspect (2024 and March 2025) and Zellic (2024) are hosted on the official docs site. Its major 2025 step was Babylon Genesis, launched April 10, 2025 — a Cosmos-SDK chain that is the first secured by staked BTC, combining CometBFT validators (BABY) with BTC-delegated finality providers. At ~$2.6B in locked BTC it is the largest non-Ethereum restaking system.
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#3
Symbiotic
~$320M TVL (Jul 2026)
Permissionless restaking protocol. Supports any ERC-20 collateral (not just ETH/LSTs). Modular design lets networks fully customize slashing and rewards. Backed by Paradigm and cyber.Fund.
Symbiotic's security page lists twelve firms across its core and relay contracts — including OpenZeppelin, Statemind, Certora, Zellic, Sigma Prime, Cyfrin, ChainSecurity and OtterSec — plus a $500K bug bounty. Stakes sit in permissionless ERC-4626 vaults, one collateral asset per vault, with non-upgradeable core contracts; networks choose their own collateral mix, operators, rewards and slashing rules. Its feature-complete mainnet — slashing included — went live January 28, 2025 with about 50 networks, 78 operators and 55 vaults at launch, after a $5.8M seed from Paradigm and cyber.Fund at its June 2024 debut.
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#4
Jito Restaking
~$14.5M TVL (Jul 2026)
Solana's restaking layer from the Jito Foundation. Vaults mint Vault Restaking Tokens (VRTs) against staked SPL assets, which secure Node Consensus Networks (NCNs) — Solana's analogue to AVSs.
The official repository lists audits by OtterSec (October 2024), Certora (October and December 2024) and Offside (November 2024). Deposits opened October 2024 with a $25M phase-1 cap that filled within hours; caps were removed in January 2025. TipRouter, the first NCN, launched January 30, 2025 and decentralizes Jito's MEV tip distribution using 2/3-stake consensus, accepting any Solana LST as collateral. At ~$14.5M restaking TVL it is small next to the Ethereum incumbents, but it is the reference restaking implementation on Solana and part of the wider Jito stack (~$790M including liquid staking, per DefiLlama).
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#5
Karak
~$6.5M TVL (Jul 2026)
Multi-asset restaking platform supporting ETH, LSTs, LRTs, BTC derivatives, and stablecoins via per-asset ERC-4626 vaults; operators allocate stake to Distributed Secure Services (DSSs) that hold capped slashing rights.
Karak is kept on this list for track record, with a major caveat: in late 2025 it rebranded to OpenGDP and pivoted to building an L1 for tokenized real-world settlement — karak.network now redirects to opengdp.network, and DefiLlama relabeled the listing "OpenGDP Shared Security". Deposits have collapsed from roughly $205M shortly after the April 2024 launch to about $6.5M as of July 2026, and the team has said the legacy staking program "will soon come to an end". Its public audit trail is a July 2024 Code4rena competition (with a September 2024 mitigation review); the old docs site, including its fuller audit list, is currently unreachable. Treat existing positions accordingly.