Mellow Restaking Review 2026: Configurable Onchain Vaults

Mellow Restaking is the DefiLlama entry for Mellow Protocol, a system for building onchain yield vaults. DefiLlama describes it as permissionless infrastructure for active liquidity management and automatic DeFi strategies. It was listed in June 2024 and currently shows about $23.5M in TVL across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Fraxtal, Lisk and Monad.

The homepage says Mellow has been live since 2022 and reports 60+ live vaults, 50+ partners and a $1B peak TVL. Those figures come from the project itself and we could not verify them independently. The current pitch is institutional earn infrastructure: exchanges, wallets, neobanks and custodians can launch branded yield products.

For individual users, the app offers vaults to deposit into. The product is more of a vault toolkit than a single staking product, so risk depends on each vault's strategy and curator.

Mellow vaults pool deposits and allocate them to yield sources under rules set by the vault owner. A curator manages the strategy within those permissions, so a vault can hold positions across DeFi protocols and, in some cases, centralized exchanges.

The homepage describes a verifier architecture, where strategy deployment becomes configuration. Permissions limit what each role can do, subvaults keep allocations separate, and oracle guardrails check pricing. Deposits and withdrawals run through a queue, and the vault value is tracked through NAV mechanics.

For platforms, Mellow offers an API so exchanges, wallets or fintechs can offer yield under their own brand. Depositors can also use the Mellow app directly. DefiLlama lists the project as liquid restaking, but the homepage focuses on broader vault yield.

Fees are not published publicly available. The homepage says platforms earn fees from their users' yield, so fee structures appear to be set per vault and per integration.

Depositors should check the fee, withdrawal queue terms and any performance charges on the specific vault page in the Mellow app and in the documentation. Network gas costs on the chosen chain also apply.

The homepage states that independent security reviews are public, that the Core Vaults code is open for review, and that Hypernative monitors smart contracts. DefiLlama lists zero audits for this entry, so readers should locate and read the actual reports in the documentation. We have no incident history.

Risks include smart-contract bugs, oracle issues, curator decisions and counterparty risk when strategies use centralized exchanges. Emergency pause and timelocks are configurable per vault, which means protections vary between vaults. Read the Risk Disclosure Statement and only deposit funds you can afford to lose.

Mellow is aimed at exchanges, wallets, fintechs and custodians that want to add yield products, as well as DeFi users who are comfortable researching vault curators, strategies and withdrawal queues. Beginners should start small and learn how vault risk works first.