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 Fees Methodology

## 1. Overview

Fees measures the total value generated by Kelp DAO through its liquid restaking and vault strategies. This metric encompasses ETH staking rewards accrued via the rsETH oracle exchange rate, EIGEN token rewards distributed to users, and management and performance fees collected from specialized vaults, including agETH and hgETH. Fees represent the gross economic value produced by the protocol's assets under management across all supported networks.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: `Claimed` events from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts and ERC-20 `Transfer` events, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Blast, and 4 other chains.
- **Blockchain state**: `rsETH`/`ETH` oracle exchange rates, `hgETH` exchange rates, `rsETH` total supply per chain, and `hgETH` total supply, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Blast, and 4 other chains.
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for ETH, EIGEN, and rsETH assets.

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: ETH staking rewards

- **Purpose**: To capture the yield generated from the underlying ETH staking positions.
- **Logic**: Daily changes in the `rsETH`/`ETH` exchange rate are extracted from oracle state updates. This rate delta is multiplied by the total supply of rsETH on each respective chain to calculate the supply-side yield in ETH. Total fees are then derived by dividing the supply-side yield by the complement of the protocol fee rate, which is identified via on-chain state reads or a default value for historical periods.

### Component B: EIGEN reward distributions

- **Purpose**: To capture the value of EIGEN tokens distributed to Kelp DAO users.
- **Logic**: `Claimed` events are parsed from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts on Ethereum. The gross claimable amount is extracted from each event before any potential protocol fee deductions.

### Component C: Vault management fees

- **Purpose**: To capture fixed management fees collected from the agETH and hgETH vaults.
- **Logic**: ERC-20 `Transfer` events of rsETH are identified where the sender is a vault-related operational contract and the recipient is a designated fee collector address. These transfers represent the 2% annual management fee for agETH and the 1.5% annual management fee for hgETH.

### Component D: hgETH performance fees

- **Purpose**: To capture variable fees earned based on the positive performance of the hgETH vault.
- **Logic**: Performance fees are calculated as 20% of any positive daily exchange rate delta for hgETH. This delta is multiplied by the hgETH total supply and the current rsETH price. This calculation is only performed for days where the total value locked in the hgETH vault exceeds $50 million.

### Component E: USD conversion and aggregation

- **Purpose**: To normalize all fee components into a consolidated USD value.
- **Logic**: All extracted amounts are normalized by asset decimal precision. Values are converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds for ETH, EIGEN, and rsETH. The individual fee streams from staking rewards, reward distributions, management fees, and performance fees are summed to produce the total daily fees.

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

Total value users pay to use a protocol (gross fees, user-paid fees).

Kelp DAO

Fees

Fees

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Chain breakdown