Lido
Lido pioneered liquid staking as a category — a design that lets ETH holders stake without locking up capital by issuing a fungible receipt token (stETH) that trades freely across DeFi. As of 2026 Lido manages $32B in staked ETH, representing 31% of all staked Ethereum.
The protocol's decentralized validator set of 425K individual operators is now integrated with EigenLayer restaking, giving stETH holders access to additional yield through actively validated services (AVSs) without leaving the Lido curve.
The DAO structure — deliberately independent from any single corporate entity — has become a case study for how to build governance around a market-share-dominant infrastructure primitive without inviting regulatory capture.
Liquid staking as a category-defining primitive. We were early to the seed, before the category existed as a named thing.
Konstantin Lomashuk
Co-FounderVasiliy Shapovalov
Co-FounderJacob Blish
Head of BDMarin Petrov
Head of Product- Q4 2020Founded and mainnet launch
- Q1 2021Oryon seed check
- Q3 2022Merge shifts ETH to PoS, Lido becomes largest staker
- Q2 2025EigenLayer restaking integration
Managing $32B in staked ETH. Restaking integration live across major providers.
“Lido rewrote the economics of proof-of-stake before anyone else understood what liquid staking was.”
— Bankless, 2022