TVL of Liquid Staking Protocol Lido Crosses $30 Billion for the First Time

The liquid staking protocol Lido reached a total value locked (TVL) of $30.56 billion for the first time on February 26th.

TVL of Liquid Staking Protocol Lido Crosses $30 Billion. Image: Decrypt

The TVL of Ethereum's liquid staking protocols has been consistently surging over the past two months, driven by the upcoming Dencun upgrade. Leading this charge is Lido, which recently surpassed $30.56 billion in total value locked (TVL) on February 26th.

TVL fluctuation of Lido from September 2021 to present. Source: Defi LIama

Within just one month, Lido's TVL has increased by over $10 billion. Its previous peak was $20.83 billion on April 5th, 2022, just before the collapse of the Terra USD stablecoin ecosystem. This substantial figure had the community speculating that Lido was "bewitched."

Following closely behind Lido are platforms like Rocket Pool ($3.9 billion), Mantle ($1.6 billion), Frax ($970 million), Swell ($804 million), and Stader ($641 million) in terms of TVL.

TVL fluctuation of top 10 liquid staking protocols. Source: Defi LIama

TVL measures the total value of assets invested or locked within a decentralized financial protocol, indicating its popularity.

Additionally, Lido's tokenized staking ETH, stETH, has surpassed both XRP and USDC in market capitalization, despite these being longstanding cryptocurrencies in the industry.

Market cap comparison of stETH surpassing XRP and USDC. Source: CoinGecko

In the realm of liquid staking, Lido continues to dominate. It currently controls 32% of ETH staking and is the largest validator organization on the Ethereum network. Fundamentally, Lido operates as an independent protocol with 36 entities running nodes and managing block generation processes.

LDO has seen a more than 5% increase in the past 24 hours and is price-reactive akin to Bitcoin, the elder sibling of the crypto market.