Pick the right signer, honestly.

The baseline: built-in client slashing protection

nklave vs your validator client's built-in protection

Every modern validator client ships slashing protection — usually a database file the client consults before signing. It works, and for many operators it is enough. But it inherits the trust model of the client itself: if the client is compromised, the protection can be bypassed; if the client is replaced by an attacker, the check can be skipped entirely, because enforcement lives inside the same process that signs. nklave moves that check to a separate trust boundary in front of the keys, so a refused request never reaches the keystore or HSM — enforcement holds even when the validator host is fully compromised. That separation matters more as restaking multiplies the surfaces a single key can be slashed on. It is honestly a heavier deployment than a client's built-in file; the trade is a boundary that does not fail with the client.