Lido DAO

Lido is the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum, and LDO is its governance token. It lets users stake ether without running a validator, locking a minimum of 32 ETH, or losing access to their capital while it is staked.

A user deposits ether and receives stETH, a token representing the staked position plus accrued rewards. That token can be traded, used as collateral in lending protocols, or deposited into liquidity pools, so the capital remains productive while it secures Ethereum. This solved a real constraint: before liquid staking, staked ether was illiquid and locked, which made staking unattractive for anyone who might need access to their funds.

Structure

Deposited ether is distributed across a set of professional node operators approved by Lido governance, so no single operator controls a large concentration of validators. Rewards accrue to stETH holders after a protocol fee, which is split between node operators and the Lido DAO treasury.

Lido has also operated liquid staking on other networks, though its Ethereum product is by far the largest.

Concentration debate

Because Lido has consistently held a large share of all staked ether, its size has been a recurring topic in Ethereum governance. The concern is that a single protocol controlling a large fraction of validators could affect the network's censorship resistance or finality guarantees, regardless of how well distributed its node operators are. Lido governance has addressed this through operator diversification and has publicly discussed self-limiting.

LDO has a maximum supply of one billion tokens, all issued, with roughly 836 million circulating. It governs node operator selection, fee parameters, and treasury use, but it is not itself a claim on staking rewards.