Puffer

• Name: Puffer
• URL: https://www.puffer.fi/
• Category: Ethereum staking / liquid restaking / based-rollup / preconfirmation infrastructure
• Tags: ethereum-ecosystem
• Summary: Puffer is best cataloged as a multi-product Ethereum infrastructure platform rather than as only a liquid restaking protocol. Its current official materials jointly present four main surfaces: a native liquid restaking / yield protocol, the UniFi based rollup, the Puffer Preconf service for fast rollup preconfirmations, and an institutional Ethereum infrastructure offering. The docs make clear that Puffer’s real operating surface now spans validator economics, liquid restaking, L2 infrastructure, and preconfirmation middleware.
• What it does:
  • Runs a native liquid restaking protocol on EigenLayer, where stakers receive pufETH and node operators (“NoOps”) can run validators with reduced collateral requirements
  • Markets capital-efficient validator participation, validator tickets, and both PoS and restaking rewards through the yield protocol
  • Operates UniFi, a based rollup positioned around sub-second transactions and instant L1 withdrawals
  • Provides Puffer Preconf, an EigenLayer-based preconfirmation service for L2s that offers ~100ms execution preconfirmations backed by restaked security
  • Maintains an institutional product surface for larger Ethereum staking and infrastructure users in addition to its protocol-native and rollup-native products
• Key claims:
  • The yield docs call Puffer a decentralized native liquid restaking protocol built on EigenLayer and emphasize permissionless validator participation plus the pufETH liquid restaking token
  • The protocol docs claim NoOps can run validators with 2 ETH of collateral while stakers supply the broader validator capital base, which is a core differentiation point for Puffer’s validator-economics design
  • The Puffer Preconf docs describe a gateway-based preconfirmation architecture that offers ~100ms execution preconfs for rollups, backed by 3M ETH of restaked security and designed to avoid centralized-sequencer tradeoffs
  • The homepage and docs root both show that Puffer’s public product map now includes liquid restaking, UniFi, preconfirmations, and institutional infrastructure, which is why it should not be reduced to a single staking category
  • The site positions UniFi as a based rollup with instant L1 withdrawals and sub-second transactions, reinforcing that Puffer now operates at the rollup layer as well as the staking layer
• Whitepaper: No single canonical Puffer whitepaper or litepaper was found in this pass that cleanly covers the full current stack. The strongest primary sources were the official site, the docs homepage, the yield docs, the Puffer Preconf docs, and the linked GitHub organization; see ../whitepapers/puffer-primary-sources-2026-04-27.md.
• Sources:
  • https://www.puffer.fi/
  • https://docs.puffer.fi/
  • https://docs.puffer.fi/yield/intro
  • https://docs.puffer.fi/puffer-preconf/puffer-preconf-intro
  • https://docs-unifi.puffer.fi/
  • https://institutional.puffer.fi/
  • https://github.com/PufferFinance

Internal linkages

• Best reads for the three real surfaces here: puffer-preconf, symbiotic, and stakewise.

• That keeps the note honest: one link for the fast-commitment sub-stack, one for security export, one for staking operations.

• Last reviewed: 2026-05-31 UTC