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Before Ethereum launched as a proof-of-work (Pow) protocol, the core team was already researching how to get Ethereum on proof-of-stake (PoS) which is a relatively energy-efficient way of achieving consensus.
However, it wasn't until late 2021 when the ethereum foundation shipped a parallel chain known then as Eth 2.0 which was a PoS version of the Ethereum virtual machine. Eth 2.0 is now known as the Beacon Chain, and anyone who wants to stake to secure the network is required to deposit 32ETH.
Patrons of the Ethereum ecosystem realized that 32ETH is not easily affordable to the average crypto user, however, the average user would have loved to reap the network fees associated with staking ETH. So Lido comes in with an offer to let users mint liquid staked ETH (stETH) with native ETH in a ratio of 1:1. stETH can be redeemed at any time for the principal ETH plus the profit accrued.
With Lido's offer, investors are provided with access to the benefits of staking rewards while being able to quickly liquidate without having to wait for withdrawal functionality which the Ethereum foundation has planned to ship later when the PoS and PoW chains are merged.
The objective of this post is to analyze the amount of ETH that has been staked with Lido and the trends over time.
Ether Staked
To stake ETH with Lido, one has to navigate to the user interface at https://stake.lido.fi/ to specify the amount of ETH to stake. Once the amount is confirmed, the equivalent amount of stETH tokens at 0xae7ab96520de3a18e5e111b5eaab095312d7fe84 is minted and credited to the user's wallet. Since Lido's inception, the total amount of ETH staked via the platform is in excess of 5.3M as confirmed by the result returned from querying the blockchain.
As you can see, the amount of ETH staked via Lido over time follows a zigzag pattern with some very high spikes. Generally, the total amount staked daily is below 50k ETH, however, there have been certain days where amounts staked have surpassed that threshold. In recent times, 373k worth of ETH was staked on March 15, 2022, which has been the largest for a single day.
Breaking the analysis further into averages, we found that an average of ~81ETH is staked every day on Lido.
Conclusion
Lido is an innovative platform that has lowered the barrier of entry to staking on the Ethereum beacon chain. And its utility is confirmed by the number of ETH being staked through the platform every single day. If we take a look at ETH2 staking deposits, Lido has contributed to more than 57% of the total amount of ETH staked.