Beacon Chain ETH Staking Contract Deposits >>

The Beacon chain staking contract has been a validators’ destination to deposit PoS ether since 2020, and has collected over Ξ14M.

In the month before the Merge, it saw between 2.5k and almost 100k deposited every day. There was a spike on Sep 1st, and also a 3.5 average increase so far in September, compared to the previous two weeks.

However, the same dynamic was not entirely replicated in liquid staking. The daily amount of ETH deposited into liquid staking protocols peaked on August 17th with Rocket Pool. In a more similar vein, Lido saw several peak deposit days.

Which part of all staking was in LSPs? >>

In the month leading up to the Merge, deposits into liquid ETH staking were as high as 60% of all Beacon ETH staking deposits on some days.

Despite Lido being the market leader for liquid staked ETH, staking with Rocket Pool was high on certain days in August -- although inconsistent overall.

On the other hand, deposits into Lido liquid staking hit between 10-30% of total staking at least once every few days.

Average Liquid Stake: 30ETH Below Validators >>

32 ETH is needed to operate a staking validator on PoS Ethereum -- an amount which can be a barrier to individual users.

Liquid staking has made the benefits of staking ETH more accessible.

An average user on several popular LSPs has put up just 2 ETH in the month leading up to the Merge (including Merge day).

An average pStake user only staked 0.4 ETH.

Additional metrics:

Introduction

Liquid staking on Proof of Stake Ethereum emerged nearly two years ahead of the Mainnet’s official transition to PoS: the Merge.

Liquid Staking Protocols (LSPs) address two central issues: the large minimum stake required to become a validator (32 ETH), and the illiquid nature of ether locked for staking.

As of this writing, the Merge was successfully completed nearly 24 hours ago. Yet, it will be months until unstaking is enabled by Ethereum’s next hard fork. This is an additional reason why liquid staking remains an attractive proposition for users seeking both ETH staking yields, and simultaneous flexibility.

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