The Lido Community Lifeguards
Solo stakers are the cornerstones of the Ethereum network.
Yet, we only constitute 6.5% of the network regarding staked ETH. Without decentralisation, the Ethereum block space will lose its credible neutrality and along with it, its value.
Blackrock will cease to settle their massive yield-bearing stablecoin on Ethereum and institutional adoption will be stillborn.
New products are needed to solve this problem; equally important, new talent needs to be cultivated from a wider pool.
While the Lido protocol builds the former, the Community Lifeguards support the latter. ?
In a nutshell, we represent the voice/interests of Ethereum solo stakers in the Lido community, support them throughout their solo staking journey, and ultimately grow the talent pool of new Ethereum solo stakers globally.
Check out the Snapshot voting results of our full proposal here.
Who is Lido?
For my non-Web3 native friends, Lido is the largest DeFi protocol by total value locked (TVL), at a staggering US$30bn.
Their core product is stETH, a liquid staking derivative of ETH, which accrues proof-of-stake rewards for its holders automatically without having to run their own staking infrastructure.
How does stETH work?
Lido itself does not run staking infrastructure.
Instead, the Lido DAO appoints professional node operators through DAO governance and delegates ETH to them in a way that maximises decentralisation for the Ethereum network. E.g., No single node operator has >1% of total staked ETH
This is a highly competitive process and only the best operators will secure the coveted spots.
Today, there are ~40 professional node operators, with >250 smaller node operators and solo stakers to be added to the mix over 2024.
What can you look forward to?
There are 3 exciting products/initiatives in the works:
Lido Community Staking Module (CSM):?
The CSM lowers the 32 ETH requirement for running your validator node to just 2 stETH, provided as a bond.?
Once sufficient bond is provided, Lido will make the 32 ETH deposit for your validator key.
This enables users to earn rewards on both the 2 stETH + share in the rewards of the 32 ETH—effectively boosting your rewards rate by >2x.
The CSM testnet is live and participants that perform well will enjoy further bond discounts on the mainnet in Q4 this year.
You can even participate for free (i.e., without buying hardware) using Google Cloud credits.?
DM or comment if you want to know how.?
Lido SimpleDVT:
You can even become a node operator for Lido as a solo taker without providing any bond.
Lido “delegates” up to 500 activated validator keys to clusters of 7 node operators with a 7% rewards split to node operators.
You can do the math and easily see how lucrative this can be,—e.g., 1% 500 keys 32 ETH * ~3% POS rewards—simply on $800 consumer-grade hardware.
Naturally, this has a higher bar skill-wise but guidance is readily available on the Lido Discord or my public Telegram group.
Community grants
One of our core strategies for developing the solo staker talent pool is working closely with local grassroots communities and supporting them with grants.?
If you think your community tends to like being hands-on and learning a highly monetisable Web3 craft, then we’d love to chat and help you grow at the same time!