We are excited to finally unveil StakeWise Boost — an easy way to earn more from staking!
StakeWise Boost amplifies your staking rewards by increasing your stake by up to 14 times, letting you earn the difference between the additional rewards and the cost of sourcing extra capital.
Boost is designed for safety and simplicity — offering up to 3x increase vs normal staking rewards, all from simply depositing osETH in the StakeWise UI.
Looping will launch with a limited supply — only 15,000 ETH is available initially. While more capacity will be added in the future, the cap means you probably need to act fast if you want to be among the first ones to amplify your yield.
In this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started and make the most of this opportunity.
Let’s dive in!
TL;DR
🖱️ Simple & User-Friendly: Easily deposit and withdraw assets from Boost using StakeWise UI.
🔒 Safe: Boost eliminates liquidation risk by using stable native rate feeds for osETH collateral, plus continuous de-risking mechanisms.
💰 More Rewards: Achieve up to 3x boost to staking rewards with a mixture of ETH, osETH, and additional incentives.
How To Use
Entering Boost:
👆 Head to the Vault or Stake page: you can Boost from any Vault, provided it has been upgraded to the latest version (v3.0). You can also Boost from the Stake page.
🔢 Check out Boost APY: decide if you want to use the Boost by looking at the max Boost APY available in the Vault. You can achieve maximum APY by depositing all of the osETH you can mint from a Vault into Boost.
🫳 Deposit osETH: Click the “+” button in the Boost tab to select the amount of osETH to deposit and confirm the transaction. You will be asked to sign a spending approval request for osETH when boosting for the 1st time.
💸 Enjoy Boost rewards: once your deposit transaction is confirmed, you will automatically start earning boosted rewards.
Monitoring Boost:
🔢 Check out Boost APY: periodically check on your Vault position to ensure the Boost APY is positive. Unboost your position if you are unhappy with the performance, or if you see a negative Boost APY for longer than 7 days in a row. Note that StakeWise will keep the community informed about the best times to exit the Boost — stay in the loop via our Discord.
Exiting Boost:
🚪 Unboost your stake: click on the “ — ” button in the Boost tab to select the amount of osETH to withdraw from Boost and confirm the transaction. This will put the entered amount of osETH into the Unboost queue, which takes up to ~10 days to be completed. Note that only one Unboost request can be active at once — i.e. you will not be able to unboost more assets until your previous Unboost request has been completed.
💸 Claim your deposit and rewards: claim the exited assets on the Vault page by pressing on the Claim button next to the Boost tab. We recommend that you claim assets as soon as they become available to maximize your rewards from Boost. Delays in claiming will negatively affect your performance.
About StakeWise Boost
What is StakeWise Boost?
StakeWise Boost is a strategy that enhances traditional ETH staking by using osETH as collateral to borrow additional ETH on Aave. This borrowed ETH is then staked again in StakeWise, creating a “looped” process that is repeated multiple times.
The end result is a significantly increased staking position, allowing users to earn the surplus between the extra staking rewards and the borrowing fee paid to Aave.
How Does Boost Work?
Here’s a quick recap of how Boost works:
- Deposit osETH into Boost via the Vault or Stake page. Note that Boosting via the Stake page will allocate additional ETH to the Genesis Vault, even if it’s not the Vault where you originally received osETH from
- Boost will use osETH as collateral on Aave to borrow more ETH
- Borrowed ETH will be staked in the Vault on your behalf, netting you the difference between additional rewards and borrow costs on Aave
The Boost mechanism operates seamlessly in the background. Simply click on the “+” sign in the Boost tab in the Vault or Stake page interface, enter the amount of osETH to deposit, and confirm the transaction.
Every 1 osETH will be looped 6x times in Vaults with 90% LTV, and 14x times in Vaults with 100% LTV. osETH deposited via the Stake page is always looped 14x times.
Staking Rewards
StakeWise Boost maximizes earnings by extracting the difference between additional staking rewards and the cost of borrowing extra ETH on Aave. This strategy has historically delivered an APY of ~7%, with normalized expectations of 4–6% given current ETH borrowing rates.
The rewards from Boost may be increased by externally sourced rewards like SSV, Obol, SWISE, and osETH.
Advantages of StakeWise Boost
With deposits multiplied 6x-14x for boosted rewards and gas-efficient transactions, here are even more advantages you should know about:
No Performance Fee: StakeWise doesn’t charge a fee for using the Boost.
No Liquidation From Value Fluctuations: Stable native rate feeds provided by Aave ensure that the osETH price fluctuations on DEXs doesn’t impact the health of your position.
No Slippage: Strategy profit is not affected by slippage during exits, because Boost does not rely on the secondary market for repaying the debt. Hence, strategy profits are maximized even in periods of market volatility.
Built-In De-Risking Mechanism: When the osETH APY exceeds the average ETH borrow rate, the strategy on Aave experiences a decline in the LTV ratio, continuously de-risking its use for stakers.
Quick Access: Enter and exit positions conveniently in the easy-to-use Vault page or Stake page with a few clicks.
No Performance Fees, Just Earnings
With StakeWise, there are no performance fees on Vault returns — everything you earn stays right in your wallet.
This makes the combined APY even more attractive, especially compared to competitors who charge performance fees as high as 20% on earned APY.
Supported Vaults
Any Vault can offer the Boost feature, provided it has been upgraded to v3.0.
Boost works well with any Vault LTV, but gives access to more loops in Vaults with 100% osETH minting. Vaults with 90% LTV offer 6x loops, while 100% LTV Vaults offer 14x loops.
Risk Considerations
No DeFi strategy is without risk. Although we have done our utmost to make StakeWise Boost safe to use, there are a few risks you must take into account:
Boost APY will fluctuate: Boost APY can stay below the Vault APY or even flip negative for a few days per year. This is expected behaviour as the borrow rates on Aave fluctuate from hour to hour, and can increase significantly on days with high market volatility. It’s best to exit the Boost if you consistently (e.g. for 1 week straight) see the Boost APY below 3%.
Monitoring the Boost APY: You are responsible for monitoring the Boost APY and for the rewards earned. However, StakeWise will also monitor and advise our community on the times when it is best to pull assets from Boost, so stay connected via Discord.
No liquidations from osETH value fluctuation: osETH depegs do not endanger your capital. Aave uses the stable native rate feed provided by StakeWise instead of the volatile secondary market price feed. You cannot be liquidated if osETH depegs.
Liquidation is still theoretically possible: a liquidation can be triggered if the Boost APY is negative for a prolonged period of time (i.e. measured in months). Boost APY of -10% or more, when sustained for 1 year, will bring your position close to liquidation, endangering your capital.
Aave rates drive Boost APY: ETH borrow rates on Aave must increase to over 4% for over a year to cause a liquidation. Such high rates have never been sustained for over a few days per year, but are possible theoretically. The best thing to do is to monitor your Boost APY once in a while and withdraw from Boost if you see a negative APY figure for over 7 days in a row.
Boost has been audited: the contracts for Boost have been audited by Sigma Prime and Hexens, and Aave has been audited multiple times as well.
For a more detailed analysis of key risks around using Boost, check out this article.
As always, please do not hesitate to ask any questions you may have in our Discord.
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