I’ll start with general commentary around LRTs and then get to the individual protocols.

General LRT risks

Liquidity crisis – if a lot of users are rushing for the exits, similar to a stablecoin, LRTs might trade at a discount to par, even if their fair value is par. If users have a leveraged view on LRTs (i.e. with looping) they are exposed to these depegs. Liquidity for LRTs has not been established yet, so we don’t know exactly how they will fare especially in times of distress.
Duration risk – LRTs have different duration profiles. Some amount of LRTs can be sold instantly, although perhaps not at par. Redemptions might be gated by the protocol, meaning that extracting the full value of the LRT might take some time. Eigenlayer for instance offers a one week exit period. If the exit period is shortened, the risk of depegging is much less. This contrasts with the StETH/ETH depeg which was caused by the lack of exit entirely pre-Shapella. I don’t expect depegs to be meaningful with the relatively short exit period.
Default risk – node operators could be slashed causing LRTs to trade at a discount. Eigenlayer has the ability to veto a slashing event if it looks like it will be too disruptive.
Smart contract risk – conventional risks that all crypto infrastructure faces

Since we still have limited data on LRTs and Eigenlayer itself, I can’t give scores above a 7 for now. However we’ll look at a few protocols.

Ether.fi.
• Ether.fi raised 23m in a Series A from Bullish and CoinFund. T
• hey have $3.2b locked.
• The largest LRT provider, they are focused on native restaking, which in my view results in less intermediation. They also seem to be the most widely integrated with other protocols. Strong investors, largest treasury. 7/10

Kelpdao
• Kelp has $748m TVL.
• Reading the sigmaprime and code4rena reports are impressive and comprehensive
• Unclear about investors or fundraise
• Non native restaking, additional layers of risk
• Discount for the above, 5/10

Swell
• 250m in TVL
• Native restaking
• Raised 3.75m from strong investors Framework, IOSG, and Apollo
• 6.5/10

Renzo
• 2.06b in TVL, second-largest provider
• Mainly differentiated through its support for ETH L2s, and support for both ETH and LSTs
• Raised a 3.2m seed from Maven11 with participation from others
• They face three layers of risk (LRT, LST, and Eigenlayer) compared with Puffer Swell or Etherfi
• Discount on their score due to the above and investors 5/10

Puffer fi
• 3rd largest LRT provider with $1.3b locked
• They raised 5.5m from Lemniscap and Lightspeed.
• Impressive traction with relatively little capital raised, although in theory you would want a larger treasury
• Score: 6.5/10

For now, it’s hard to make a final assessment because we need more evidence for how these function in the wild under a variety of risk conditions, especially when slashing and depegs are concerned. Overall I remain skeptical of LRTs. I do favor native restaking (Puffer, swell, and etherfi) versus non-native (kelp, renzo), and my scores reflect that.