With the date of withdrawal for unstaking Ethereum drawing closer, there is a strong rally in the tokens that power the numerous liquid staking protocols.
For instance, data from CoinGecko shows that Rocket Pool (RPL) and Lido Finance (LDO) have already recorded major gains in the last 24 hours.
LDO
Lido Finance is the largest liquid-staking protocol that exists on the Ethereum network and the governance token that powers it is known as LDO.
The last 24 hours saw the token record gains of about 17.2%, which pushed it up to a value of $1.88. The liquid-staking derivative crypto saw intense trading.
Therefore, its trading volume also jumped a whopping 436% on different exchanges to reach $276 million.
Data from CoinGecko shows that LDO’s market capitalization has crossed the $1.5 billion mark, which makes it the 33rd largest crypto in the market.
Coinglass reported that the last 24 hours had seen LDO future positions of about $1.61 million liquidations and most of them had been blown-out short trades.
The previous week had also been a rewarding one for the governance token of Lido Finance. In terms of total value locked (TVL), the protocol has become the largest decentralized application.
This means that it ended up taking the crown from MakerDAO, the creator of the DAI token. The LDO token was also the biggest weekly gainer.
The last 7 days saw the LDO token record gains of 74.8%, as opposed to a 3.8% meager gain for Bitcoin in the same period.
RPL
Data from CoinGecko showed that the liquid staking token RPL, which powers the protocol Rocket Pool, has also made significant gains of 14.2% in the last 24 hours.
At the time of publishing, RPL had seen its daily trading volume increase in the last 24 hours by 802% to reach $7.8 million and was trading at a value of $26.13.
However, even though RPL is enjoying a strong rally, it should be noted that it remains down from its all-time high value by about 56.6%, as it had reached a whopping $59.46.
Other than the liquid staking tokens, there were daily gains of 4.4% for Ethereum itself and its weekly gains stood at 10%.
Ethereum, Shanghai and staking
In September 2022, Ethereum was successful in transitioning to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism, after which there was no longer any need for energy-intensive mining equipment.
Instead, a staking mechanism replaced these machines, which means users have to stake 32 ETH to become network validators.
As long as they are honest in validating the network, they will earn a percentage yield on the staked Ethereum. Malicious behavior can lead to hefty fines on the staked tokens.
The yield is quite lucrative, as users can get 4% on 32 ETH, which is around $42,000, but the investment is still significant.
With services, such as Rocket Pool and Lido, users are permitted to stake whatever amount of ETH they want and can still get rewards.
Other than the upfront charge, the staked Ethereum cannot be removed until the next upgrade. Therefore, with the Shanghai upgrade coming, users will be able to withdraw their staked tokens.