weETH expands on Optimism after Ether.fi wins partner role

Why Optimism chose Ether.fi as liquid staking partner

Ether.fi has been selected as the liquid staking partner for OP Mainnet, signaling that liquid staking is becoming a first-class treasury and DeFi primitive within the Optimism ecosystem. The decision follows a structured review process rather than a marketing-led integration, positioning weETH to play a foundational role in OP Mainnet’s next growth phase.

The selection emerged from a comparative request-for-proposal process that weighed liquidity depth, net yield, ecosystem alignment, and risk profile within a risk-adjusted framework, according to the Optimism Collective (optimism.io). The same announcement framed liquid staking as a multi-protocol future for OP Mainnet, indicating that Ether.fi’s role complements a broader strategy to strengthen capital efficiency and neutrality across the network.

What weETH is and how it works on OP Mainnet

weETH is Ether.fi’s liquid staking asset designed to represent staked ETH while remaining usable across DeFi. The instrument is intended to preserve onchain liquidity, accrue staking economics to the holder, and interoperate with protocols that accept yield-bearing collateral.

On OP Mainnet, weETH functions as a composable building block for trading, collateralization, and treasury operations. Its practical utility depends on integrations across DEXs, lending markets, and other primitives on OP Mainnet, where an LST that maintains liquidity and operational clarity can help reduce fragmentation and support more predictable programmatic use.

Immediate impact for users, treasuries, and OP DeFi integrations

For end users, having Ether.fi weETH on Optimism enables a standardized, yield-bearing base asset that can be transacted and potentially pledged as collateral once integrated by DeFi protocols. In principle, this can simplify portfolio construction on OP Mainnet by consolidating staking economics and onchain liquidity into a single instrument.

For treasuries, the choice of a liquid staking partner determined through a risk-adjusted methodology may provide a clearer framework for mandate compliance and operational controls. If adopted by more OP-native protocols, a consistent LST primitive can also improve liquidity routing and pricing in DeFi markets, which in turn could lower slippage and improve capital efficiency across integrations.

At the time of this writing, Ether.fi’s ETHFI token has recently traded around $0.48 with daily volume near $32 million and a market capitalization reported close to $356 million, based on data from CoinGecko. These figures offer market background rather than guidance and may change without notice.

Risk-adjusted treasury framework and evaluation criteria

Optimism’s evaluation criteria emphasized comparative measurements of liquidity depth, net yield, ecosystem alignment, and risk profile using a normalized, risk-adjusted treasury framework. The intent is to ground treasury and ecosystem choices in standards consistent with institutional practice, reducing model risk and improving accountability across protocol decisions.

Security assurances for Ether.fi highlighted formal verification and a multi-firm audit program, reflecting controls that institutions typically review before custodying or collateralizing a new asset. “EtherFi’s core and auxiliary contracts have been rigorously audited and formally verified by leading firms including Certora, Nethermind, Zellic, Halborn, Solidified, Omniscia, Paladin, Decurity, and CertiK,” said Ether.fi in its submission to the Optimism governance forum (gov.optimism.io). This audit depth, together with the risk-adjusted selection process, frames how weETH may be incorporated by OP Mainnet DeFi protocols and treasuries subject to their own governance and risk limits.