The StakeWise is governed by the StakeWise DAO, which uses SWISE governance token to vote and incentivize the adoption of the protocol. SWISE holders control the protocol parameters (e.g. fees, criteria for placement in the activation queue, choice of node operators, Treasury disbursements etc.) via frequent voting based on the StakeWise Improvement Proposals (SWIPs).

Non-custodial in nature, the protocol tokenizes stakers' rewards separately from the deposits, allowing to apply staked ETH capital in DeFi, reinvest (compound) the returns and manage staked capital more efficiently. StakeWise also employs several mechanisms for boosting the staking APR and rewards users in its native token for liquidity provision and choosing StakeWise, thus putting yield and stake liquidity into focus.