rETH is Rocket Pool's liquid staking token. It represents a staked position in the protocol rather than a fixed one-to-one receipt, so users typically keep the same amount of rETH while its value relative to ETH increases as staking rewards accrue. In practice, rETH is Rocket Pool's main liquid-staking product for people who want Ethereum staking exposure without operating a validator themselves.
What rETH represents
Rocket Pool is built around two main participant groups: liquid stakers and node operators. Liquid stakers enter through rETH, which is the protocol's tokenized staking position for pooled ETH.
That means rETH is not just a coupon for deposited ETH. It is the main asset Rocket Pool uses to let users keep a liquid position while participating in Ethereum staking through the protocol.
How rewards show up
Rocket Pool's staking guides explain rETH in terms of exchange-rate growth rather than a rebasing token balance. Users are told to hold rETH and let its value grow relative to ETH over time.
This is why a person can receive less than 1 rETH for 1 ETH when swapping into it on a market. The protocol docs frame that as normal, because rETH is intended to be worth more than ETH as staking rewards accumulate.
- Your token count usually stays the same.
- The value of each unit of rETH is what moves relative to ETH.
- This makes rETH different from liquid staking tokens that update balances directly.
How people get and use it
Rocket Pool's public staking guides emphasize that users do not have to acquire rETH only through a single official interface. They can also obtain it through supported decentralized exchanges on Ethereum mainnet or supported Layer 2 networks.
In practice, this makes rETH both a protocol asset and a tradable market asset. That is helpful for accessibility, but it also means market price, liquidity, fees, and slippage can matter when entering or exiting a position.
What rETH does not mean
rETH should not be thought of as a permanently fixed 1:1 wrapper around ETH. The whole point of the token is that it reflects a staking position whose value changes over time.
It also should not be confused with the entire Rocket Pool protocol. rETH is the liquid-staker side of the system, while node operators, minipools, and governance are the other parts that make the protocol function.