First published 6 January 2021, the day after the governance token was announced. The staking pool had opened in December 2020. Expanded in October 2026 so the receipt is not described as LDO, and so a rebase is not described as a bank payment. Lido is a protocol that pools ETH with validators and gives the depositor a receipt. Ethereum without the jargon is the chain. LDO is the governance token of the pool. It does not pay Ethereum’s fee, and holding it is not a stake of ETH.
One billion LDO were minted for the launch. The announcement put about 36 percent in a DAO treasury and the rest with founders, investors, validators, and developers, locked for a year from December 2020 and then vested over another year. A small slice went to early stakers. That claim is closed. The lock described in January 2021 has run. An unlock was coins that already existed. The explorer is the count if a later vote changes a contract.
The receipt is stETH. The vote is LDO
The receipt on Ethereum is stETH. Its balance can rise when staking rewards are credited, without a transfer arriving. That rise is the design. It is not interest in a bank account, and a market price below one ETH is the market, not a broken rebase. A wrapped version, wstETH, keeps the reward inside the price of the token instead of raising the balance. Sending either receipt sends the claim. Sending LDO does not.
Before Ethereum’s April 2023 upgrade, the receipt could be traded and could not be redeemed through the protocol. After that, leaving is a queue. You hand in the receipt and wait. While you wait, a slash of the pooled validators can still reduce what comes out. The screen shows the estimate. Selling the receipt to someone else is a trade, at their price, and it is not the queue. Staking is a lock and a queue, not a savings account.
On 4 July 2025 a second check went live. Holders of the staking receipt can escrow it to delay a proposal, and a larger escrow can hold proposals until they leave. LDO still casts the vote. The receipt is not LDO. Lido also has contracts on other chains. A receipt there is a different token. The wrong network is still the wrong city. Nothing here is an instruction to deposit ETH, to vote, or to buy LDO.
