While investors, developers, and venture firms have embraced restaking, some fret that the trend is crypto's latest ticking time bomb, a rehypothecation of trust that will inevitably collapse.

They point to the specter of contagion risk – the idea that if an operator is slashed by an AVS, the impact could ripple across the entire staking ecosystem, depleting the value of the entire restaking pool, and cutting down on the security of every other AVS as a result.

(EigenLayer is adding an insurance program called "attributable security" to address this concern, but the details haven't been finalized.

With the rise of LRTs comes an even larger fear of a mass catastrophe. If protocols start leveraging people's trust by allowing them to stake tokens, liquid staking tokens, and also liquid restaking tokens, then the surface area for a rehypothecation crisis grows. One slashing event or depegged asset could topple many.

Although versions of pooled security have existed for a while – most notably in the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem – the modern formulation of "restaking" remains more theory than reality.

EigenLayer was technically the first restaking protocol to launch on Ethereum's mainnet, but it remains in limited beta. EigenLayer accepts deposits, but most of its key features – including slashing – had yet to exist at press time, and AVSs are only allowed to register with the program but can't yet deploy

The only incentive for restaking and liquid restaking thus far has been "points," which are score counts tracked by EigenLayer and liquid restaking protocols that depositors hope will be tied to future airdrops of digital assets.

Points aren't designed to have any value, but users have begun buying and selling them outright – igniting a speculative frenzy around restaking that some fear isn't grounded in economic reality, and could lead to disappointment and big sell-offs down the line.

EigenLayer and liquid restaking protocol Renzo have already shown how the point systems can set unrealistic expectations: Both projects sparked fury last month when they revealed token airdrop plans that featured smaller allotments for point-earners than some depositors had anticipated.

One prolific angel investor of Solana projects told CoinDesk he "had not (yet)" invested in any restaking teams for that ecosystem. When asked why, he responded cheekily: "Just debating when restaking blows up crypto