by Chris Lion 
Lido Finance holds over 28.5% of all staked Ether, as it remains the largest DeFi protocol category.
The largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum, Lido Finance, has reached a significant milestone, hitting the $1 million validators mark. According to an X post, Lido Finance announced the achievement on April 29.
1 million validators pic.twitter.com/fELATWQPIu
— Lido (@LidoFinance) April 29, 2024
The liquid staking protocol allows users to stake their Ether without locking tokens or investing in expensive infrastructure.
In addition, Lido Finance enables users with limited capital to participate without needing 32 Ether to run their validator nodes on Ethereum. Also, users staking ETH through Lido can utilize their stETH tokens to engage in on-chain activities like trading and lending to ensure seamless participation in the ecosystem.
Lido Finance Holds Majority of Staked Ether.
Dune data shows that over 27% of the total Ether supply is staked. Lido Finance holds the majority (28.5%) of staked Ether, followed by 13.6% staked through Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange.
According to DefiLIama, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi protocols skyrocketed from $36 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023 to $97 billion in the first quarter of 2024. The total DeFi TVL is at $92.32 billion at the time of writing.
The remarkable 65.6% quarter-on-quarter growth in DeFi TVL was fueled by Liquid staking protocols such as Lido. “This uptick was primarily driven by asset price appreciation and liquid restaking, led by Ethereum’s TVL growth of nearly 71%,” on-chain intelligence provider Messari said.
Liquid staking protocols have gathered a cumulative TVL exceeding $47.7 billion. Lido leads with over $29.9 billion, followed by Rocket Pool at $3.86 billion.
Lido Finance Continues to Lead
Liquid staking protocols dominate DeFi, with $47.6 billion TVL across 164 protocols. Lending ranks second at $30.7 billion, followed by cross-chain bridges with $21.8 billion TVL.
Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin raised concerns about potential centralization risks with Lido in a September 2023 blog post.
“With the DAO approach, if a single such staking token dominates, that leads to a single, potentially attackable governance gadget controlling a very large portion of all Ethereum validators. To the credit of protocols like Lido, they have implemented safeguards against this, but one layer of defense may not be enough,” Buterin wrote.
As at press time, the price of Lido-staked ETH was trading at $3,172.58, with a market cap of $29.76 billion
