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 Supply-side fees Methodology

## 1. Overview

Supply-side fees for Kelp DAO measure the total value generated by the protocol that is distributed to liquid stakers. This metric primarily captures the staking yield generated by the underlying ETH collateral and additional rewards distributed in the form of the EIGEN asset. These fees represent the economic benefit retained by supply-side participants after protocol-level fees, such as those associated with agETH and hgETH vault management, are deducted.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: `Claimed` events from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts, along with rsETH/ETH exchange rate and total supply state data, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Blast, and 4 other chains
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for ETH and EIGEN assets

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: ETH staking yield tracking

- **Purpose**: Calculate the portion of ETH staking rewards distributed to rsETH holders.
- **Logic**: Daily changes in the rsETH/ETH exchange rate are retrieved from oracle contracts. This rate delta is multiplied by the total supply of the rsETH asset across all supported chains to determine the gross ETH yield. The supply-side portion is isolated by deducting the protocol fee, which is retrieved from the `LRTConfig` contract or defaults to 3.5% for historical periods where the on-chain fee parameter was not yet initialized.
- **Key fields**: `rseth_eth_rate_raw`, `rseth_supply_raw`, `protocol_fee_rate`

### Component B: EIGEN reward distribution

- **Purpose**: Capture the value of EIGEN asset rewards distributed to Kelp DAO users.
- **Logic**: `Claimed` events are parsed from `EigenRewardDistributor` contracts on Ethereum to track EIGEN asset distributions. The gross amount of each claim is extracted from the event logs. Because the protocol fee for these distributions is currently set to zero, 100% of the claimed value is classified as supply-side fees.
- **Key fields**: `amount_raw`, `claimer_address`

### Component C: USD normalization and aggregation

- **Purpose**: Normalize all fee streams into a single USD-denominated metric.
- **Logic**: All fee amounts are normalized by decimal precision. ETH-denominated staking yield is converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds for the native ETH asset. EIGEN distributions are converted to USD using end-of-day price feeds for the EIGEN asset. The final values are aggregated at a daily granularity with UTC day boundaries. Management and performance fees from agETH and hgETH vaults are excluded from this calculation as they are allocated entirely to protocol revenue.
- **Key fields**: `price_usd`, `block_timestamp`

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

Portion of fees distributed to service providers or supply-side participants.

Kelp DAO

Supply-side fees

Supply-side fees

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown