# Operator Incentives (Rewards / Slashing) ### Operator Incentives (Rewards / Slashing) Operators are incentivized through a portion of the rewards earned by the Guardians they allocate to. The operators then distribute these rewards proportionately to the delegators (ETH restakers) after deducting their commission. Ethos leverages the cryptoeconomic security of restaked ETH through various slashing mechanisms, which levy a high cost of corruption. Operators are subjected to slashing rules as defined in the Ethos AVS contract. If any operator behaves maliciously, their stake can be slashed by the EigenLayer protocol. Restakers who delegate stake to operators accept the risk of their stake being slashed if the operators behave maliciously. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.ethosstake.com/ethos/ethos-avs/operator-incentives-rewards-slashing.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.