4 major trends in liquidity staking
1: DeFi integration
Liquid Staking is becoming an important part of DeFi. It enables users to use their staked assets as collateral for lending, trading on DEXs, or participating in liquidity pools
We can expect to see a wide range of innovative applications for LSD in DeFi, from index investing to aggregation, from mining to leverage strategies
2: Unlicensed node
Many protocols have launched or announced nodes that can run without permissions. By using these LSD protocols, users can run permissionless nodes and receive rewards as fees from protocol users without the need for a track record or performance history
Ethereum liquidity staking is now centralized, which also brings risks. To solve this problem, the permissionless node approach plays a vital role in LSD decentralization
3: Multi-chain
Although Ethereum currently leads the liquidity staking trend, other chains are actively developing similar solutions. LSD is likely to become the standard for any PoS blockchain in the future
LSD’s success on Ethereum is undeniable. Although the adoption of liquid staking on other chains is currently limited, it is expected to gain traction
4: Actual rate of return
One of the big trends in Crypto is Real Yield, and liquidity staking projects are no exception. Holders of the native token receive a share of the protocol’s revenue. Liquidity staking projects fit this trend as they continually generate fees
For example, staderlabs introduced a real-world yield use case for its token $SD. We can see similar situations from other projects
Fueled by Merge and the upcoming Shanghai update, Liquid Staking started on Ethereum in 2022 and has become an important part of its ecosystem
Ethereum’s stake ratio is around 15% but is expected to grow by 10% over the next 1-2 years. LSD’s share has reached 40%, and if this number remains the same, the TVL of liquid staking is likely to grow significantly
The future of liquidity staking protocols
This trend is spreading to other blockchains. There will be more and more similar projects in other ecosystems
We can expect that LSD will likely become a fundamental element of any DeFi ecosystem, just like DEX and lending