The native token of Lido Finance has been lost amid slowing demand and mixed expectations about the upcoming Ethereum merger event. Lido Finance’s native token, LDO, has fallen almost 10% earlier this morning–representing the largest financial drop within the top 100 cryptocurrencies on the market.
However, it has recovered from today’s low at $1.91 to approximately $2 by press time.
This bearish move is coming amid weeks of stagnant demand for Ethereum Staking services within this market.
Lido Finance offers liquid staking for Ethereum, Polygon and Solana as well as other crypto networks. The DAO platform was launched in December 2020 and offers a 3.8% competitive yield for ETH deposits, without the need for large infrastructure. Liquid staking is the act of depositing Ethereum and receiving another token in return. This process is known as liquid.
Dune Analytics data shows that Ethereum deposits on a weekly basis have fallen to 33.204.
This contrasts sharply with the joyous heights of March & April of this year, when staking on beacon chains remained at 237,000 for nine consecutive weeks.
Comparing Lido Finance’s performance to other beacon chain depositors, we see that the liquid staking system has been in a state of stagnation since May.
Coinbase has exceeded Lido’s 50,000 depositors since May 9, while Kraken has surpassed 98,000 and Binance has surpassed 59,000. However, Lido retains a healthy market share of 30.88%.
September 15 has been set for Ethereum’s eagerly awaited transition to proof of stake.
The event, also known as the merge, has sparked interest among many exchanges too. Some even support a potential forked Ethereum token called ETHPOW.
According to the Ethereum Foundation the transition will also make the network more efficient by 99.95%.
Despite this, Vitalik Buterin , Ethereum’s cofounder, stated that Ethereum will be only 55% complete after the merger.
Bitcoin argues that its community is well over 80%.
