Puffer: Decentralized Liquid Restaking Protocol with Unique Features

About Puffer Finance

Puffer defines a new industry standard for secure authentications to maintain decentralization. Puffer's Anti-Slashing technologies are designed to minimize the chance of clipping events. Secure-Signer technology was launched in the public interest to help protect individual stakers and the broader staking industry from associated blackout penalties. Our Secure-Aggregator technology provides the foundation for building a secure, scalable and performant liquid staking protocol. Allowing permissionless and capital-efficient Node Operator participation allows anyone to participate in PufferPool to help maintain the decentralization of Ethereum.

What Does Puffer Bring?

Protocol

• Permissionless: Anyone can run a validator on Puffer.
• Local Recapture: The first local liquid recapture protocol on Eigenlayer.
• Ethos Alignment: The protocol is self-capped to protect Ethereum.
• Explosive Growth: The value of pufETH may grow even if validator queues are long.

No Operation

• Capital Efficiency: Less than 2 ETH to run the validator.
• Anti-Slash Protection: First-of-its-kind anti-slash hardware support.
• MEV Autonomy: NoOps chooses MEV strategy.

Awards

• Liquid Staking: Anyone can stake any amount of ETH.
• Receiving Rewards: Özkatman integration strengthens the rewards.
• Validating Tickets: Aligns NoOp incentives, fixes MEV, and creates new markets.
• Liquid Rewards: NoOps' execution rewards are instantly liquid.
• Buy and Hodl: Earn PoS and repurchase rewards without running a validator.

Stakers and NoOps together create a flywheel effect that allows Puffer to outpace the growth of traditional liquid staking protocols.

 To ensure Puffer never becomes a threat to Ethereum's trust neutrality, it limits Puffer to 22% of the validator set.

The protocol is managed by Stakers  and  Node Operators  (NoOps):

1. NoOps  can join any  Puffer  module by locking Validator Tickets  and 1 ETH as collateral   . In return, they will run 32 ETH validators and keep 100% of the PoS rewards until the VTs run out. NoOps  can increase their rewards by participating in repurchase modules and transferring the validator's ETH to the repurchase operator  in exchange for the repurchase reward commission   .

1. Stakers  can deposit any amount of ETH to help fund the protocol's 32 ETH NoOp controlled validators. In return, they receive the pufETH native Liquid Retaking Token (nLRT), which increases in value as protocol validators mint tickets and receive repurchase rewards  .

Stakers can deposit ETH and mint pufETH nLRT through the PufferPool contract, which acts as a redeemable receipt for the ETH they re-stake   . If sufficient exit liquidity is available, stakers can withdraw their ETH from PufferVault. Over time,  the amount available from validating tickets  and repurchase rewards is expected to increase. Stakers can deposit ETH and mint pufETH nLRT through the PufferPool contract, which acts as a redeemable receipt for the ETH they stake   . If sufficient exit liquidity is available, stakers can withdraw their ETH from PufferVault. Over time,  the amount available for redemption is expected to increase as validating tickets  are sold and rewards are repurchased.

PufETH holders receive their rewards as validating tickets are minted, giving early stakers an advantage. Traditional liquid staking tokens (LSTs) only accrue PoS rewards. As an nLRT, pufETH collects both PoS and repurchase rewards, allowing the staker to earn more without requiring complex DeFi strategies. However, pufETH is a liquid token and therefore 100% compatible with DeFi for those who value malleability.