Lido

Lido provides liquid staking solutions for staked assets and Ethereum. The platform allows users to stake their assets to receive daily staking rewards. There is no set minimum amount of tokens that users are allowed to stake. Lido issues synthetic native tokens for all staked Ethereum through its protocol, allowing users to stake Ethereum and get equal value assets that can be utilized in different DeFi applications to receive a yield.

When users stake with Lido, they get stETH tokens on a 1:1 basis as a represention of their staked ETH. Their stETH balances can be utilized like regular ETH to receive yields and lending rewards, and the balances are updated daily to reflect their ETH staking rewards. There are no lock-ups or any minimum deposits for staking with Lido.

Users who stake with Lido can get staking rewards, without needing to lock up tokens. They also send out rewards every twenty-four hours. Users are allowed to stake as low as they want and receive the corresponding rewards. They can develop stETH to be utilized in the DeFi space. It can be utilized as collateral for DeFi loans, as well as yield farming on Curve Finance. Lido provides an alternative to self-staking and exchange staking.

Users can stake ETH on Lido by doing the following:

• Connect their wallet to the site. The platform supports different wallets, like Metamask, Ledger.
• Input the amount of ETH to be staked. Lido will display the amount of stETH users will get, and the transaction fee.
• Confirm the transaction to enable broadcast to the blockchain.
• The stEth becomes available in the wallet and the staking process is complete.

On December 19, 2020, Lido launched its staking app with 1 billion LDO tokens developed at genesis. Founding members of the platform possess 64% of the LDO tokens, which are locked for one year, and will be vested over one year. Subsequently, 0.4% was unlocked and airdrop distributed to early stakers, including DAO treasury tokens.

The DAO treasury received 36.32%, and 22.18% was earmarked for investors. Validators and signature holders got 6.5%, 205 were reserved for Initial Lido developers, and the founders and future employees got 15%. LDO is the platform's native utility token and it is used for giving governance rights, managing fee parameters and distribution, as well as governing the inclusion and removal of Lido node operators.

stETH is a token representing staked ether in Lido. It is a combination of the value of initial deposit in addition to staking rewards. stETH tokens are minted when deposited and burned when they are redeemed. The token balances are pegged 1:1 to the ethers staked by Lido. The balances are updated whenever the oracle daily reports change in overall stake. stETH tokens are utilized similar to ether, allowing users to get ETH 2.0 staking rewards and receive yields across decentralized finance products.

Holders of stETH can earn rewards via integrated platforms like Curve or SushiSwap, utilize it as collateral for DeFi lending, put up their stETH tokens for sale, or convert them back to ETH. stETH's supply represents the overall amount of ETH deposited into the Lido contract. Users can check the overall supply of staked Ethereum tokens or stETH, whenever they want on Etherscan.

There are a variety of apps and services integrated in the Lido ecosystem:

• Stake Ether: For staking ETH to get daily staking rewards
• Curve: This is an Exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum for stablecoin trading
• MakerDao: MakerDAO allows digital tokens to be utilized as collateral for loans
• AAVE: The open-source protocol allows users to get interest on deposits and borrow assets
• Ledger: Users can stake with Lido from this wallet
• SushiSwap Onsen: This allows users stake their tokens for liquidity rewards
• 1inch: This is a DEX agregator
• FTX: This is a licensed cryptocurrency exchange
• Balancer: This is an automated portfolio manager and trading platform
• ImToken: Wallet for Ethereum, Bitcoin and others
• LDO Airdrop: Used for checking balance and claiming LDO tokens
• Unslashed: Decentralised blockchain-based cover protocol
• MetaMask: Ethereum wallet and ecosystem gateway
• MyEtherWallet: Client-side interface for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain
• Argent: It is used for earning interest and exploring Dapps
• Yearn: Offers automated lending and trading strategies
• TrustWallet: Ethereum token wallet
• Zerion: Integrated platform for the storage and management of Ethereum assets
• Zapper: Zapper facilitates the tracking, management and visualization of the DeFi portfolio
• Harvest Finance: Harvest Finance allows users to get yields across DeFi protocols
• Gnosis Safe: Multi-sig wallet for digital asset management on Ethereum
• Nexus Mutual: People-powered alternative to insurance
• Babylon Finance: Asset management & DeFi platform
• CoinGecko: Independent source of cryptocurrency data
• CoinMarketCap: Price-tracking website for cryptoassets
• Gemini: Platform for crypto portfolio building
• Tempus: users can stake their ETH and get a fixed-rate yield