Editors note:

We’re trying something new for the Sunday articles.

These were meant to highlight projects in the articles we wrote about earlier in the week, however we felt that content was getting too long.

So, we’re going to try and fix that in the coming weeks, let us know if this works for you or if you have any ideas on what you want to see – after all, we’re writing these for you!

Liquid Staking Derivatives

If you need more context about what Liquid Staking Derivatives are, how they work, and their advantages and drawbacks, please have a look at last week’s “Learnings” article on the topic below.

https://ottalabotta-crypto.beehiiv.com/p/liquid-staking-derivatives

The Spotlight

According to DeFi Llama, there is currently $16.15bn total value locked across 19 different LSD protocols.

We’re going to cover some of the bigger ones maintaining the largest market share, and some of the smaller ones which have recently gained significant traction.

1. Lido

Key-points we’ve noted when looking into Lido:

Networks Takes you to the Lido homepage where you can easily see the different networks Lido has available for liquid staking (which is not common beyond Eth). Includes Kusama, Polygon, Solana, and some more.

Nodes Takes you to the node operator application page. It details how you can engage with any of the above mentioned networks as a node operator through Lido.

Market share Takes you to DeFi Llama’s liquid staking category dashboard. As at the time of writing this, Lido has over 74% of the market share.

Consistent audits Takes you to their GitHub which houses over 40 audit reports on Lido contracts. It’s a major green flag to see a project take its smart contract security so seriously, especially when they are locking up so much money in their protocol.

Governance Takes you to their governance page which outlines their extensive process. We’re always bullish on well thought-out governance systems and Lido is no exception.

2. Rocket Pool

Key points we’ve noted when looking into Rocket Pool:

Consistent audits Takes you to their security web page. Well respected auditors (ConSensys, Trail of Bits, Sigma Prima) and active on Immunefi for bug bounties.

Nodes Takes you to their node operator web page. Note, only Ethereum is available for nodes here.

Traction Takes you to the DeFi Llama RPL dashboard. Note growth before the Ethereum Shapella upgrade was consistently on an uptrend, and the upgrade (April 2023) only “rocketed” their growth further.

Team Takes you to their team page. Their team is publicly listed and each members has more than 10 years’ experience in their respective fields.

3. Stader

Key points we’ve noted when looking into Stader:

Expansive network Takes you to their home page where you can easily see current and upcoming blockchain integrations. Noteworthy, is that these are a different selection to Lido, including Near, Fantom, Hedera. Upcoming ones are Avalanche and Solana.

Partnerships Takes you to their partnerships page. They have an impressive list of partners, which includes 15+ funds, 4 blockchains, and 11 angels. Names like coinbase, Huobi, Pantera, and angels from Afterpay, Polygon, Anchorage.

New market entrant Takes you to their about page. Compared to Rocket Pool (6yrs) and Lido (3 years), Stader has been trading since May 2022 but their dApp has only been live since Sept 2022. A green flag evident here is that we’re seeing so much adoption in less than a year of services since going live.