Analysis

• More than 4.1M ETH has been staked by nearly 79K unique depositors since the launch of the platform;
• The staked volume ranged between amounts as low as 1 Wei and as high as 62K ETH;
• While the median of staked ETH has been 0.9, the average has been much higher with a value of 33.9 ETH;
• A low median value indicates that the number of small depositors has been much higher compared to big players;
• On the other hand, a high average value indicates that big players outweigh the small hands by volume;
• The standard deviation of the staked ETH amount has been 525 which demonstrates that the values spread out further from the average and become more dissimilar. Also, it shows a higher likelihood of extreme values;
• The coefficient of variation with a value of around 15 also indicates a high relative dispersion of staked amount compared to their mean value.

Introduction

Lido is the leading liquid stacking solution built on Ethereum with more than $7B total value locked, according to Defillama which allows its users to earn yields by staking their assets while being able to use liquid counterparts in other DeFi protocols. With the Ethereum 2.0 merge on the horizon, every DeFi protocol built on the network is preparing for the event. Liquid staking protocols such as Lido are no exception.

In this analysis, an overview of staked Ethereum on Lido with a statistical evaluation has been provided since the launch of the protocol.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the analysis of ETH staking on the Lido finance has demonstrated that:

• More than 4.1M ETH has been staked by nearly 79K unique depositors since the launch of the platform;
• The deposited amounts covered a wide range and have not been distributed evenly;
• The standard deviation and the coefficient of variation of stake ETH have shown a wide distribution and dispersion from the average and median values;
• The majority of staking deposits have happened with amounts less than 10 ETH, while the volume distribution evens that out in higher ranges.
• The number of depositors and the volume of staked ETH had an upward trend from the launch of the platform until April 2022. Since then, the values have massively dropped;
• There have been major increases in the staked volumes in direct relation to major bullish movements in the price of Ethereum;
• While the cumulative number of unique depositors has had a consistent upward movement, the cumulative staked volume has plateaued since May 2022;
• The depeg of stETH:ETH price ratio in May 2022 has had a negative effect on the credibility of the platform and resulted in a massive drop of staked ETHs.

Methodology

All of the required data for this analysis were collected from the ez_eth_transfers table of the core schema of the ethereum database. Besides the calculation of the number of transactions, the number of depositors, and the staked volume, other statistical quantities such as minimum, maximum, average/mean, median, standard deviation, and coefficient of variation were measured using the amount column to identify an overview of the distribution of staked volume. These quantities were also measured in a monthly manner since the range of the data almost includes two years of data points. To further analyze the relation of the stETH:ETH price ratio with the staked volume, the daily price of the two tokens was measured using the fact_hourly_token_prices table.

To more accurately analyze the distribution of staked ETH volume, the histogram of the staked amount has been charted for both the number of staked amounts and the summation of their volume in buckets with a range of 10 ETH. As it can be seen in the following charts, the majority of staking deposits have happened with amounts less than 10 ETH, while the volume distribution evens that out in higher ranges.

The monthly analysis of staked ETH on Lido has demonstrated that:

• While there has not been a visible trend, the number of unique depositors has had an upward trend, even in 2022 considering multiple crashes that happened throughout the year;
• The volume of staked ETH has also had an upward trend since the launch of the platform until April 2022. Since then, the total staked volume has massively dropped. The spikes in the chart have been in direct relation with a major bull run in that particular month;
• The average of staked ETH had an overall consistent value throughout the period with spikes during the months with major upward movements in the crypto market. This was only until April 2022. Since May, the average of staked ETH drastically dropped to levels around 2 ETH;
• High monthly values of standard deviation and coefficient of variation have demonstrated high levels of dispersion throughout the measured period. The only exception was March 2021;
• While the minimum and maximum amount of staked ETH has had high volatility in each month, the median has remained almost consistent from the beginning until April 2022.

The daily and cumulative values of the number of unique depositors and the volume of staked ETH have demonstrated in the following charts. The platform has seen a consistent number of depositors each day and has had solid growth since its launch. There have been three spikes in the number of depositors which are in accordance with major upward movements in the price of ETH regardless of the overall bull/bear market. The daily staked volume has also had some levels of consistency in the inflows of ETH to the platform, especially during the first months of 2022. Since mid-May 2022, the staked volume dramatically dropped to lower levels and the cumulative line almost plateaued since then. One of the major reasons for this turn of events has been the depeg of stETH price from ETH during May. Other factors such as the overall crypto bear market, and the debates around the ETH 2.0 merge have also had major effects on the performance of DeFi protocols such as Lido.

To further analyze the effects of stETH:ETH depeg on the staked volume, the prices of these two tokens and their relationships have been analyzed and depicted in the following charts. It can be seen that while the peg had remained consistent between April 2021 and April 2022, it started to diverge from 1 in the early days of May and even dropped to levels as low as around 0.94. While it has slightly recovered to 0.98, it has not been able to fully peg once again since then. This depeg is in accordance with the drop in the staked volume on the platform.

Data

The contract address of Lido was mentioned on the Stake Ether page of Lido's website. A full list of deployed contracts is also accessible from the official Lido documentation.

> Contract: 0xae7ab96520de3a18e5e111b5eaab095312d7fe84

Also, the data in this analysis were compared with the official Duna Analytics referenced on the official Lido website for accuracy.

To further break down the distribution, the staked deposits with an amount of less than 10 ETH were analyzed in ranges with a width of 0.1 ETH. The below charts demonstrate that while the number of staking transactions has been higher in amounts less than 0.1 ETH, the volume is almost evenly distributed between 0 ETH to 10 ETH, with integer numbers having higher staked volume throughout the measured range.

Histogram

To chart the histogram of staked ETH volume, the first bucket ranges with a width of 10 ETH defined to group the staked amounts. A specific formula using the floor function was used to group the amount between a particular range in a single bucket. The range of 10 ETH was determined by trial and error between different values to better depict the distribution. Ultimately, the number of deposits was counted and their amount was summed up to have two histograms. Due to the aggregation of data points in lower amounts, two other histograms were graphed by shortening the width of the buckets for staked amounts below 10 ETH.

Bucket Floor = FLOOR(amount / 10) * 10