Renzo

• Renzo is a liquid restaking protocol built on top of EigenLayer.

• Users deposit ETH and receive ezETH, which represents the restaked position and remains usable across DeFi.

• REZ is the governance token; ezETH is the yield-bearing asset.

• Supply allocated across community distribution, investors and the treasury.

• Governance rights over protocol parameters and operator selection.

Pros:

• Abstracts EigenLayer operator selection, which most depositors are not equipped to evaluate.

• ezETH is integrated across lending and trading protocols.

• Among the larger liquid restaking protocols by deposits.

Cons:

• In April 2024 ezETH depegged sharply on secondary markets after a withdrawal queue mismatch, triggering cascading liquidations for leveraged holders.

• Adds a protocol layer on top of EigenLayer, compounding rather than reducing smart contract risk.

• Yield depends on EigenLayer services paying for security.

• Exposure to restaking without selecting operators directly.

• ezETH liquidity is deep enough for practical DeFi use.

• The 2024 depeg is the risk to understand before anything else.

• Operator selection and reward strategy handled by the protocol, so depositors take one decision rather than many.

• Restaking requires choosing among operators with different slashing exposure, which most depositors cannot assess.

• Pooling that choice into a managed strategy makes restaking accessible at the cost of trusting the manager.

• Founded by Lucas Kozinski, Kratik Lodha and colleagues, with backing from Binance Labs and others.

• Governance is progressively handed to REZ holders.

• No public ICO. REZ was distributed via Binance Launchpool and community allocations in April 2024.

• Liquid restaking tokens can depeg from the underlying when withdrawals are constrained, as happened in April 2024.

• Slashing on EigenLayer flows through to ezETH holders.

• Layered smart contract risk across Renzo and EigenLayer.

• Leveraged ezETH positions amplify any depeg into liquidations.