Is Ethereum staking leading token $LDO worth holding long-term through this bull market? How high will the bull market go?
In the Ethereum staking track, both $EIGEN and $ETHFI have already moved into independent market runs. Is it now time for $LDO ? Today, I’ll focus on my outlook for LDO’s future. Previously, I believed LDO’s ETH staking volume still had room to grow fourfold—that is, the overall ETH staking ratio would rise from the current 30% to 60%, while LDO’s share in the staking market would also increase from 30% to 60%. But now, I’m more cautious about the premise that “LDO’s market share must reach 60%” for two reasons:
First, the competitive landscape has clearly intensified.
Like emerging players such as ETHFI are rising rapidly. Even though when looking at the full-circulation P/E ratio, ETHFI still lags behind LDO and LDO’s leading position remains solid in the industry, ETHFI has three key differentiating advantages:
· The circulating supply is low, making it easier for capital to push prices;
· It has a practical dividend mechanism, returning part of protocol revenue to token holders through token buybacks;
· Greater business extensibility: beyond liquid staking, it also expands into additional businesses and offers re-staking playbooks.
Although this rebound in ETHFI may have some market-making or backing-fund factors, it also reflects market recognition of the underlying capital’s confidence. Given the increasingly fierce competition, I currently hold a cautious view on whether LDO can maintain its past growth slope.
Second, the governance path is overly “long-termism,” which may cause it to miss early expansion windows.
Recently, LDO granted stETH holders a certain degree of governance rights through proposals. This clearly reflects the community’s good values, but the benefit-release cycle is too long. What worries me more is that this move exposes LDO’s current governance style as somewhat “left-leaning.” While the market is still in its early phase and the battle for market share is far from over, it begins pursuing institutional improvement and decentralization ideals. In contrast, more aggressive, more centralized organizations (assuming their decisions are correct) often capture market share faster. This makes me think of the path difference between Solana and Ethereum over the past two years: a left-leaning route may have a higher lower bound, but its near-term upper bound is often suppressed.
Of course, as ETH as a whole moves upward, it’s still highly likely that the LDO price will return above $1. In the short term, I’ll consider getting involved. But from a mid- to long-term allocation perspective, I’ll lower my expectations for it and no longer treat it as a “sure-win leader,” but rather as an opportunity to be approached in phases. How high can a bull market go? At the moment I can’t give a definite multiple target—I’m more inclined to take it step by step and dynamically assess how the competitive landscape changes.
