What Is the Difference between ‘Slashing’ and ‘Unstaking’ in DeFi?

Unstaking is the voluntary action of a user withdrawing their locked tokens from a staking contract, typically after an unbonding period. It is a normal, non-punitive process.

Slashing, in contrast, is the involuntary, punitive loss of a portion of a user's staked tokens due to malicious or negligent behavior (e.g. double-signing or downtime). Unstaking is a user choice; slashing is a protocol enforcement mechanism for security.