Puffer Finance

Puffer Finance, an EigenLayer-based liquid restaking protocol, has evolved through several pivotal milestones. The launch of PufferDAO introduced a community-driven governance framework with vePUFFER NFTs, enabling boosted voting power and protocol decision-making. The deployment of UniFi AVS brought pre-confirmations to Ethereum, achieving 100ms transaction finality while leveraging Based Rollup architecture. The introduction of the CARROT token established an incentives program aligned with governance epochs. The mainnet launch and subsequent airdrop events, including PUFFER and CARROT claims, marked significant distribution moments. Despite a security incident involving the X account hack, the protocol demonstrated resilience by compensating affected users through on-chain EIGEN purchases. These developments collectively position Puffer as a decentralized infrastructure provider, advancing from liquid restaking to a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing LRT, rollups, and AVS services.

Unlocks: About 19.17 million PUFFER, 1.9% of total supply, released on October 9, with roughly 19.16 million more due November 8, split between early contributors and investors and worth about $1.2 million; monthly cliffs run through October 2028. Some 552 million tokens, 55.2% of supply, are already unlocked.

Progress and fundamentals: Google Cloud joined Puffer Preconf as a gateway operator on September 22, and Upbit listed PUFFER against the Korean won on October 15, driving a 117% one-day and 227% weekly gain. The protocol has no buyback, burn or fee share, and Binance delisted PUFFER perpetuals in April.

In 2026 Puffer pivoted from liquid restaking toward an institutional Ethereum settlement layer. On March 12 it partnered with Anchorage Digital so institutions can access pufETH inside regulated custody; on September 22 Google Cloud joined as a gateway operator for Puffer Preconf, delivering sub-second preconfirmations backed by over 2.9 million restaked ETH; on September 29 Anchorage became Puffer UniFi's day-one institutional custodian. On October 15 PUFFER listed on Upbit's KRW pair and spiked on debut.

Puffer Finance's Future strategy and roadmap: Puffer partnered with Anchorage for institutional pufETH and UniFi custody, and Google Cloud joined as a Preconf gateway. Next it will move UniFi based-rollup from final testnet to mainnet, expand the Preconfs AVS (2.9M-plus restaked ETH), and launch an AI AppChain Marketplace and MCP in H2 2026, growing UniFi usage via institutional custody and stablecoin settlement.

Puffer Finance was founded in 2022 by Amir Forouzani and Jason Vranek, who both started at UC Santa Cruz and later worked on hardware and verifiable computation at the University of Southern California. Forouzani graduated from Santa Cruz in 2017, took a master's in electrical engineering at USC in 2020 and spent two years as a data scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before joining Puffer in November 2022 as chief executive.

Vranek completed his bachelor's, master's and doctorate at the same campus, worked as a research engineer at Chainlink Labs and built open-source hardware accelerators in Chisel, and now designs the anti-slashing and restaking architecture as co-founder and chief technology officer.