Users deposit ETH or liquid staking tokens (stETH, ETHx, etc.) into Kelp and receive rsETH, a liquid restaking token. The deposited assets are delegated to EigenLayer operators to earn restaking rewards on top of base staking yields.

Kelp DAO is a liquid restaking protocol built on Ethereum and EigenLayer. It enables users to restake their ETH and liquid staking tokens while maintaining liquidity through the rsETH derivative token. Kelp was launched in December 2023.

Kelp DAO (part of KernelDAO) develops and governs the protocol. The protocol charges a 3.5% fee on staking rewards (revenue), as set by protocolFeeInBPS in the LRTConfig contract. Kelp DAO's $9M private sale was co-led by SCB Limited and Laser Digital, with participation from Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, Cypher Capital, GSR, and others.

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Kelp DAO

# Kelp DAO Average revenue per user (ARPU) Methodology

## 1. Overview

Average revenue per user (ARPU) measures the revenue generated per active user over a fixed 24-hour window. It reflects the effectiveness of Kelp DAO in monetizing its user base through liquid restaking services, including staking yield commissions, vault management fees, and performance fees. The metric is calculated by dividing total daily protocol revenue by the number of active users (daily), providing an indicator of the economic value captured from individual participants.

## 2. Data sources

- **Revenue**: Derived from the Revenue metric
- **Active users (daily)**: Derived from the Active users (daily) metric
- **Blockchain events**: `AssetDeposit` and `ETHDeposit` events from `LRTDepositPool` contracts, `AssetWithdrawalQueued` events from `LRTWithdrawalManager` contracts, `Claimed` events from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts, and rs-20 `Transfer` events, covering Ethereum
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for ETH, EIGEN, and rsETH assets, plus on-chain state updates for oracle exchange rates and supply balances

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Active user tracking

- **Purpose**: Identify the daily population of unique users interacting with the protocol.
- **Logic**: Unique addresses are extracted from `AssetDeposit` and `ETHDeposit` events from `LRTDepositPool` contracts to identify depositors. Withdrawers are identified via `AssetWithdrawalQueued` events from `LRTWithdrawalManager` contracts. Specific addresses associated with L2 redeposits are excluded to ensure only organic user activity is captured. Active users (daily) is calculated as the distinct count of these addresses per UTC day.
- **Key fields**: `in_depositor`, `in_withdrawer`, `block_timestamp`.

### Component B: Staking revenue calculation

- **Purpose**: Determine protocol revenue generated from ETH staking yield.
- **Logic**: Daily staking yield is derived from changes in the rsETH/ETH exchange rate as reported by protocol oracles. Total yield is calculated by applying the rate change to the total supply of rsETH. Protocol revenue is then extracted by applying the protocol fee rate (which defaults to 3.5% or is determined by on-chain parameters) to the total yield.
- **Key fields**: `rseth_eth_rate`, `rseth_supply`, `protocol_fee_bps`.

### Component C: Vault management and performance fees

- **Purpose**: Capture revenue from agETH and hgETH vault products.
- **Logic**: Management fees for agETH and hgETH are identified by parsing rsETH `Transfer` events from operational source addresses to designated collector addresses. Additionally, performance fees for hgETH are calculated as 20% of positive exchange rate deltas, applied only when the vault total value locked exceeds $50 million. All such fees are treated as 100% protocol revenue.
- **Key fields**: `from_address`, `to_address`, `value`, `hgeth_rate`, `hgeth_supply`.

### Component D: EIGEN reward tracking

- **Purpose**: Capture potential revenue from EIGEN token distributions.
- **Logic**: Reward claims are identified via `Claimed` events from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts. While the protocol fee on these rewards is currently set to zero, the infrastructure is configured to apply a percentage-based fee to the gross claimable amounts of EIGEN should the fee switch be activated.
- **Key fields**: `amount_raw`, `block_timestamp`.

### Component E: Normalization and ARPU calculation

- **Purpose**: Combine all revenue streams and calculate the per-user average in USD.
- **Logic**: All revenue components (staking fees, vault fees, and reward fees) are aggregated and converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds. Amounts are normalized by decimal precision. Finally, the total daily revenue is divided by the active users (daily) to produce the ARPU value. Daily granularity is maintained using UTC day boundaries.
- **Key fields**: `total_revenue_usd`, `user_dau`.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Kelp DAO

Average revenue per user (ARPU)

Average revenue per user (ARPU)

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