What is Puffer (PUFFER)?

Deep Dive

1. Core Mission: Solving Ethereum's Scalability

Puffer's primary goal is to strengthen and scale Ethereum while upholding its core principle of decentralization. It addresses two key challenges: making validator participation more accessible and improving transaction throughput for applications. The protocol aims to be a "trustless" and "community-governed ecosystem," transitioning to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) to embody these values (Puffer Finance Docs).

2. The UniFi Technology Stack

The protocol operates through a suite of interconnected products. Puffer LRT issues pufETH, a liquid token representing restaked ETH, which provides staking rewards and can be used elsewhere in DeFi. UniFi Based Rollup is an Ethereum layer-2 solution designed for ultra-fast, native appchains. UniFi AVS (Actively Validated Service) offers instant execution guarantees for these rollups, secured by Ethereum's validators (CoinMarketCap).

3. Community-Driven Governance

PUFFER is the native utility and governance token. Decision-making power is granted to users who lock their PUFFER into vePUFFER, a vote-escrow token model. This system lets the community govern key protocol parameters, select restaking operators, curate supported services, manage fees, and direct ecosystem rewards and treasury funds (CoinMarketCap).

Conclusion

Puffer is fundamentally a multi-layered infrastructure project that combines liquid restaking with scalable execution layers to expand Ethereum's capabilities. How effectively will its community-driven model navigate the technical and economic complexities of securing and scaling the network?