Recently, I saw a bunch of people talking about LSTs and re-staking, saying that the yields "stack up to be really attractive." My own understanding is quite straightforward: the basic part comes from the inflation/fee sharing of the chain itself, which can be considered as "paying wages for work done"; the additional re-staking often means you’re lending the same security to other services, with project teams giving you subsidies or profit sharing, essentially "taking on extra work."

The risks are also roughly the mirror image of the rewards: the penalties and slashing on the chain itself are well known; the layer of re-staking is more like taking on multiple contracts, and any one of them having issues could lead to collective consequences. Plus, with LST liquidity and protocol contract risks, in cases of a run or vulnerabilities, you might not be able to withdraw as quickly as you’d like.

Recently, retail investors have been complaining about validator/miner earnings, MEV, and unfair ordering, which I can also understand… The yields seem to be "market-provided," but a lot of the value comes from others capturing the sequence advantage. Anyway, I prefer to keep the layering minimal, even if it’s slower—better to sleep well.