Lido
Staking · Liquid Staking · stETH
Lido lets users stake ETH and receive stETH, a rebasing liquid staking token that accrues daily staking rewards while staying usable across DeFi.
The largest Ethereum liquid staking protocol.
Total staked
—
Latest data · 15 min delay
Risks identified
- Reserve / Depeg
stETH is not hard-pegged and can trade below ETH on secondary markets during stress. In June 2022, cascading selling by Celsius and Three Arrows Capital plus the Terra collapse pushed stETH to a multi-percent discount to ETH in the Curve pool before native withdrawals existed.
- Governance
Lido's very large share of Ethereum staking concentrates influence in LDO governance and its operator set, raising concerns about single-protocol control of validation. The Dual Governance system (live June 2025) was introduced specifically so stETH holders can veto or rage-quit DAO decisions they view as harmful.
- Network
Because Lido delegates to a set of professional node operators and DVT clusters, validator slashing or extended downtime is passed through to stETH holders. Lido reports negligible historical slashing, but a large correlated slashing or client-bug event across operators would directly reduce stETH's backing.
- Oracle
stETH rebases and the withdrawal accounting depend on the Lido oracle reporting beacon-chain balances. A compromised, buggy, or manipulated oracle report could misstate rewards or the stETH:ETH exchange rate, which is why the oracle has been repeatedly re-audited (e.g., Oracle v7.1 in 2026).
- Smart Contract
The protocol comprises complex, upgradeable contracts (Staking Router, withdrawal queue, Dual Governance, stVaults). Despite 90+ audits, high-severity findings have surfaced in reviews (e.g., critical/high issues flagged and fixed during Lido V3 audits in late 2025), so residual smart-contract risk remains.