Lido is the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum. You deposit any amount of ETH, Lido stakes it with a set of professional and community validators, and you receive stETH, a token that tracks your staked ETH plus rewards and can still be traded or used in DeFi. That solves the two problems of native staking: the 32 ETH minimum and capital that sits locked while it earns. Lido is governed by a DAO whose voting token is LDO. This guide covers its history, how Lido liquid staking works, how to stake step by step, and the risks.
For the bigger picture, see the Crypto Staking hub: it compares the options and points to the next guide to read.
Key takeaways
- Lido lets you stake any amount of ETH and get stETH back, which earns staking rewards daily through balance “rebases.”
- Lido keeps 10% of staking rewards as a protocol fee, split between node operators and the DAO treasury.
- Its share of all staked ETH has fallen from roughly a third at its peak to around 21–22% in 2026 (about 9.7 million ETH as of late October 2026), as ETFs and institutions began staking directly.
- LDO is a governance token with a 1 billion supply; it does not entitle holders to staking rewards.
- Main risks: smart contract risk, stETH trading below ETH during stress, validator performance and governance concentration.
History and Founders
Lido launched in December 2020, days after Ethereum’s Beacon Chain went live. At the time, staked ETH could not be withdrawn until an unspecified future upgrade, so anyone staking was locking funds for what turned out to be more than two years. Lido’s idea was to give stakers a liquid receipt token so their capital stayed usable.
The project was started by a group that included Konstantin Lomashuk and Vasiliy Shapovalov, both connected to the staking provider P2P Validator, and Jordan Fish, the crypto commentator better known as Cobie. Early backers included Paradigm, which bought LDO in 2021, along with Dragonfly and later Andreessen Horowitz.
Key milestones since then:
- 2021: Rapid growth as stETH became accepted collateral on Aave and the stETH/ETH pool on Curve became one of DeFi’s deepest markets. Lido also expanded to other chains, including Solana and Polygon.
- June 2022: During the Celsius and Three Arrows Capital collapses, forced sellers dumped stETH and it traded several percent below ETH on secondary markets. The underlying ETH was never at risk, but holders who needed to exit quickly took a loss. It is the clearest real-world example of liquidity risk in liquid staking.
- 2023: Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade enabled withdrawals, and Lido V2 (May 2023) let stETH holders redeem for ETH through the protocol. Lido also sunset its Solana product that year and later wound down Polygon, refocusing on Ethereum.
- 2024: The Community Staking Module opened validator slots to independent operators who post an ETH bond, and Distributed Validator Technology modules were added to reduce reliance on single operators.
- 2025: Dual governance went live, giving stETH holders a mechanism to delay contentious LDO votes and exit before changes take effect.
- January 2026: Lido V3 launched stVaults, letting institutions and builders create customized staking vaults (choosing operators and setups) while still minting stETH. Early uptake was slower than planned, partly due to long validator entry queues.
How Lido Works: Liquid Staking on Ethereum
- Deposit: You send ETH to the Lido contract. There is no minimum beyond gas.
- Mint: You receive stETH at roughly 1:1 with the ETH deposited.
- Allocate: Lido pools deposits into 32 ETH validators run by its node operator set: a curated group of professional operators plus community and DVT modules.
- Earn: Validators earn consensus rewards and execution-layer tips. Each day, after the 10% fee, your stETH balance increases (“rebases”) to reflect them.
- Use or exit: Hold stETH, use it in DeFi, or redeem it for ETH via the withdrawal queue, or sell it on a DEX.
stETH vs wstETH
Because stETH’s balance changes daily, some protocols and most Layer 2 bridges cannot handle it. wstETH (wrapped stETH) solves this: your token count stays fixed and each wstETH becomes worth more stETH over time. wstETH is what you will usually find on Arbitrum, Base, Optimism and in lending markets. Wrapping and unwrapping is done on the Lido site.
Lido is the largest example of a broader model, and our explainer on what liquid staking is covers how liquid staking tokens work and the risks they carry.
How to Stake ETH with Lido (Step by Step)
- Get ETH into a self-custody wallet such as MetaMask, Rabby or a hardware wallet. Keep a little extra for gas.
- Go to the official site by typing stake.lido.fi (the staking app) or lido.fi yourself, or using a bookmark. Phishing clones of Lido are common in search ads and use lookalike domains, extra words or different endings; if the address is not exactly one of those two, leave.
- Connect your wallet and open the Stake tab. Enter the amount of ETH.
- Review the details: the stETH you will receive, the current APR shown and the 10% reward fee. Confirm the transaction.
- Add stETH to your wallet view if it does not appear automatically, and watch the balance increase daily.
- Optional: wrap to wstETH if you plan to bridge or use DeFi apps that require it.
Lido stake: minimum, fees and what you receive
There is no Lido staking minimum: you can stake a fraction of an ETH, though on Ethereum mainnet the gas for the deposit makes very small amounts uneconomic. Lido charges no deposit or withdrawal fee of its own; its only charge is 10% of the staking rewards your ETH earns (waived if net rewards are negative), taken before your stETH balance rebases. Per Lido’s fee documentation, the split of that 10% depends on the staking module, with the curated professional-operator module paying 5% to operators and 5% to the DAO treasury. You receive stETH roughly 1:1 for the ETH you deposit, and your share of rewards starts accruing in the next daily rebase.
How to unstake
You have two exits. The withdrawal queue on lido.fi returns ETH 1:1, costing only gas, but waiting time depends on Ethereum’s validator exit queue and can range from a few days to several weeks when many people exit at once. In late October 2026 the network’s exit queue was short (around a day), while the entry queue for new validators was over three weeks long. You receive an NFT receipt and claim ETH when it is ready. Alternatively, swap stETH for ETH on a DEX or aggregator for an instant exit, usually at a small discount that widens during market stress. Compare both before choosing.
Staking rewards are generally low single-digit percentages and change with network activity; check the live APR on Lido’s site rather than relying on any quoted figure. For other routes to stake ETH, see our Ethereum staking guide.
Lido on Ethereum: Current APR and Market Share
As of October 24, 2026, Lido’s stETH paid about 2.3% APR on a seven-day average (after the 10% fee), and Lido held roughly 9.7 million ETH, about 22% of the roughly 44 million ETH staked on Ethereum. Both numbers move: the APR changes daily with network activity, and Lido’s share has been sliding for two years.
| Metric (late October 2026) | Figure | Context |
|---|---|---|
| stETH APR (7-day average) | ~2.3% | Daily readings ranged about 2.2–2.8% in the week to October 24 |
| ETH staked through Lido | ~9.7 million ETH | Worth roughly $22.5 billion at ETH near $2,330 |
| Share of all staked ETH | ~22% | Lido’s own H1 2026 report put it at 21.18% on June 30, down from 23.93% in January |
| stETH holders | ~630,000 addresses | Per Lido’s public stats |
Lido’s APR is in line with other large liquid staking tokens, which mostly paid around 2–2.4% over the same 30 days, because all of them earn the same underlying Ethereum rewards and differ mainly in fees and operator performance. Rewards have compressed as more ETH is staked: roughly 36% of the ETH supply was staked in late October 2026, and the protocol pays a lower rate per validator as the total grows. Check the live APR on stake.lido.fi before staking rather than relying on any quoted figure.
The share decline matters for Ethereum more than for individual stakers. Ethereum researchers have long warned that a single protocol controlling a third or more of stake could pressure consensus, and Lido’s drop toward a fifth eases that concern, while still leaving it the largest single staking entity.
Tokenomics
- LDO supply: 1 billion tokens, fully minted at genesis. Allocations went to the DAO treasury, early investors, the initial team and validator partners, with vesting that has now largely completed.
- LDO utility: Voting on the Lido DAO‘s proposals: fees, node operators, treasury spending and upgrades. LDO does not earn staking rewards.
- Protocol fee: 10% of staking rewards, historically split 5% to node operators and 5% to the DAO treasury; since newer modules were added, the operator/treasury split varies by module, while stakers keep 90%. Revenue therefore rises and falls with ETH staking yields and the amount staked.
- stETH: Not a separate investment asset; it is a claim on staked ETH. Its supply grows and shrinks with deposits, withdrawals and rewards.
LDO holders have periodically debated adding value accrual such as buybacks, but any change must pass governance. Treat LDO as a bet on Lido’s future fee income and governance decisions, not as a yield-bearing asset. LDO trades on most major exchanges and on Ethereum DEXs.
Why Lido Matters
- Scale: Even after losing share, Lido manages several million ETH and remains the largest single staking entity by most measures.
- DeFi plumbing: stETH and wstETH are core collateral on Aave and many other protocols, and a base asset for restaking strategies.
- Decentralization debate: Lido’s size made it the center of arguments about whether any one protocol should control a large share of Ethereum’s validators. Its declining share since 2024 is partly the result of more competition from ETFs, institutional stakers and alternatives such as Rocket Pool.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Stake any amount, no node to run | Smart contract and upgrade risk on a very large pool of funds |
| Most liquid and widely integrated liquid staking token | stETH can trade below ETH when sellers rush to exit |
| Withdrawals available 1:1 through the protocol | Withdrawal waits can stretch to weeks in busy periods |
| Long operating history and many audits | 10% fee and reliance on Lido’s chosen operators |
| Dual governance gives stETH holders a defensive exit | LDO has limited direct value capture; governance influence is concentrated among large holders |
Risks and Is LDO a Good Investment?
For stETH holders, the main risks are contract failure, slashing of underperforming validators (spread across many operators, which limits the impact), and liquidity risk if you must sell during a crisis. Leveraged loops, where people borrow ETH against stETH to stake again, can be liquidated if stETH drifts below ETH, as some discovered in 2022.
For LDO holders, outcomes depend on scenarios rather than certainties. A bull case would involve stVaults winning institutional business and governance adding value accrual. A bear case would involve continued share loss to ETFs and direct institutional staking, alongside compressed ETH staking yields. Compare alternatives in our staking platforms comparison before deciding.
Lido liquid staking risks in one list
- Slashing: a validator that breaks consensus rules loses part of its stake. Losses would be spread across all stETH holders, and the slashing incidents Lido’s operators have had so far were small and isolated, but the risk is not zero.
- Depeg: stETH can trade below ETH when many holders sell at once, as in June 2022. The withdrawal queue lets patient holders redeem 1:1; forced sellers and leveraged positions bear the discount.
- Governance: LDO holders can change fees, operators and contracts. Dual governance gives stETH holders time to exit before a contested change takes effect, but LDO voting power remains concentrated.
- Concentration: Lido is still the largest staking entity, so a contract bug or operator failure would affect a large slice of Ethereum’s stake and of DeFi collateral built on stETH and wstETH.
- Phishing: fake Lido sites and “claim your rewards” airdrops are a more common cause of losses than the protocol itself. Lido never needs you to sign anything to receive rewards; the rebase happens automatically.
FAQ
What is Lido liquid staking?
Lido liquid staking means staking ETH through Lido’s smart contracts and receiving stETH, a token that represents your staked ETH plus rewards. Unlike native staking, you need no 32 ETH and no validator, and you can still trade, lend or bridge your position (as wstETH) while it earns. In exchange, Lido takes 10% of rewards and you take on its contract and liquidity risks.
What is the minimum to stake with Lido?
There is no protocol minimum; you can stake any amount of ETH. In practice, gas on Ethereum mainnet makes tiny deposits poor value, and buying wstETH on a layer 2 network can be cheaper for small amounts.
Is Lido safe?
Lido has operated since 2020, is heavily audited and has not suffered a loss of user principal from a contract exploit. Safe is relative, though: it holds billions in a small set of contracts, relies on operators performing well and governance acting responsibly, and stETH has traded below ETH during market stress. Spread risk if staking a large amount.
Is stETH the same as ETH?
No. stETH is a claim on ETH staked through Lido. It can be redeemed 1:1 through the withdrawal queue, and it usually trades very close to ETH on exchanges, but the market price can dip during panics. It also carries Lido-specific contract and operator risks that plain ETH does not.
How long does it take to withdraw from Lido?
Requests go through Ethereum’s validator exit process. When few people are exiting, that can be a few days; when exit queues are long, it can be several weeks. Lido’s site shows the estimated wait before you submit. If you need ETH immediately, swapping stETH on a DEX is faster but may cost a small discount.
Does Lido still support Solana or Polygon?
No. Lido sunset its Solana liquid staking in 2023 and later wound down Polygon staking to focus on Ethereum. If you hold old stSOL or stMATIC tokens, check Lido’s official documentation for the remaining unstaking routes rather than using third-party sites.
Crypto is volatile and risky; this is education, not financial advice. Do your own research.
