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Lido (LDO) Poised For Explosive Surge To $17, Expert Forecasts ‘Massive Breakout’

Lido Finance, the liquid staking protocol for the Ethereum (ETH) network, has experienced significant price declines over the past two weeks, largely influenced by the market’s downtrend and the lack of bullish momentum. However, a notable breakout could be in the making for the protocol’s native token, LDO, despite negative financial metrics. 

Lido And Mellow Finance’s Partnership

Despite the challenging market conditions, Lido has made notable strides within its ecosystem. Collaborating with Mellow Finance as part of the Lido Alliance, the protocol has introduced advanced decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies for stETH holders. 

These strategies aim to leverage Mellow Finance’s permissionless Liquid Restaking Token (LRT) creation, enabling stETH holders to maximize asset utility through decentralized restaking and accumulating various rewards. 

The newly launched vaults also aim to secure and flexible means for engaging with Ethereum staking and DeFi, increasing the liquidity and utility of stETH. 

This partnership marks the initial phase of the Lido Alliance’s efforts to expand the Ethereum staking ecosystem through strategic collaborations with aligned projects. However, key metrics indicate a decline in the price of LDO, potentially following the footsteps of Ethereum, which has also seen a drop to $3,480 from its March peak of $3,990. 

Negative Financial Metrics

Lido’s Total Value Locked (TVL) experienced a 1.70% decrease, amounting to $35.39 billion, primarily influenced by ETH’s price decline. 

The amount of ETH staked witnessed a mild increase of 0.26%, with a net increase of 19,392 ETH staked over the past week. Similarly, the quantity of (w)stETH in lending pools saw a moderate increase of 1.46%, reaching 2.66 million stETH, while the amount of w(stETH) in liquidity pools decreased by 3.13% to 89.3k stETH. 

Moreover, the 7-day trading volume for (w)stETH stood at $1.03 billion, down by 19.7% compared to the previous week. Additionally, the total amount of wstETH bridged to Layer 2 solutions decreased by 2.86% to 136,893 wstETH.

Analyzing the bridging statistics, the distribution of wstETH among various Layer 2 networks is as follows:

  • Arbitrum: 69,676 wstETH (-6.07%)
  • Optimism: 28,906 wstETH (+0.44%)
  • Base: 15,429 wstETH (-6.35%)
  • Scroll: 10,329 wstETH (+9.48%)
  • Polygon: 8,522 wstETH (+0.07%)
  • Linea: 2,928 wstETH (+20.59%)
  • zkSync: 1,093 wstETH (-0.49%)

LDO Price Targets Ranging From $6 To $17

Despite these metrics, crypto analyst Alex Clay remains optimistic about LDO’s future. Clay recently shared bullish predictions for LDO, envisioning significant breakouts if the bullish momentum resumes. 

In a recent post on social media site X, Clay emphasized LDO’s 756 days of ascending accumulation, suggesting a potentially “massive breakout.” The analyst further outlined exciting price targets for bullish investors, ranging from $6.3 to $17.2.

LDO is trading at $1.88, representing a 3.5% decrease within the 24-hour timeframe and a decline of over 20% in the past two weeks. Notably, the token has witnessed a 74% decrease from its all-time high of $7.30 in June 2021.

Lido

It remains to be seen whether positive developments within the Lido protocol and increased staking activity can help mitigate the losses. Additionally, Ethereum’s potential price recovery may impact LDO’s trajectory, potentially leading to a new uptrend aimed at reclaiming previously lost levels.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com

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Lido (LDO) Takes The Lead With 13% Surge Post Ethereum ETF Approval – Key Levels To Watch

Lido (LDO), the liquid staking protocol for the Ethereum (ETH) and Polygon (MATIC) blockchains, has seen a significant price spike in the last 24 hours following the long-awaited approval of spot Ethereum ETF applications by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.

The protocol’s native token, LDO, has successfully regained the $2.30 level and is looking to break out of its one-month downtrend structure that has been in place since the market correction in April. 

LSD Sector Set To Soar With Ethereum ETF Approval?

As reported by our sister website, Bitcoinist, the SEC’s approval of the Ethereum ETFs was detailed in an official filing, highlighting that the proposals meet the provisions of the Exchange Act and relevant regulations governing national securities exchanges. 

The Commission has determined that proposals from notable entities such as BlackRock, Grayscale, Bitwise, VanEck, Ark Invest/21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton fulfill the requirements to prevent fraud and manipulation, protect investors, and safeguard the public interest.

Crypto analyst Daan Crypto Trades, commenting on the Ethereum ETF approval on X (formerly Twitter), pointed out that the new index funds approval has led to two sectors emerging as clear winners. 

One of these sectors is Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSD) coins, with Lido at the forefront. Lido provides staking support for the Ethereum blockchain without the need to lock tokens or maintain infrastructure, allowing participants to engage in on-chain activities such as lending and farming.

Key Levels To Watch For Lido

During the early hours of Friday, LDO reached a peak of $2.49 but has since retraced to its current trading price of $2.35. Large investors are interested in the token, as Spot On Chain data reveals that six fresh wallets/whales withdrew 4.3 million LDO ($9.59 million) from crypto exchange Binance over the past 24 hours. 

This indicates a growing interest in holding the token, as sentiment suggests a potential increase in price parallel to Ethereum once the newly approved index funds for the second-largest cryptocurrency enter the market in the coming months.

Moreover, CoinGecko data shows that Lido has experienced a trading volume of $350 million within the last 24 hours, marking a 78.60% increase compared to Thursday’s. However, the token remains 68% below its all-time high (ATH) of $7.30, achieved during the 2021 bull market.

Lido

Looking ahead, bullish investors should closely observe the next resistance level on the LDO/USD daily chart, situated at $2.55. Breaking this level is crucial for breaking the downtrend structure that has persisted over the past month, potentially leading to retests at $2.70 and $2.90.

Conversely, the $2.21 zone serves as a significant support level, as it acted as a strong barrier for Lido in the past week and a half before the breakout.

Featured image from Shutterstock, chart from TradingView.com 

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LidoDAO Records Overwhelming 92% Votes To Exit The Solana Network

In a recently concluded voting program, it was revealed that over 92% of LidoDAO members (Lido token holders) of the decentralized liquid staking protocol Lido Finance, voted in favor of Lido ceasing its operations on the Solana Network.

LidoDAO Cut Ties With The Solana Network Following Community Vote

The proposal was first introduced by Lido on Solana’s peer-to-peer (P2P) team on September 5, due to financial limitations. Following the introduction, the voting program began on September 29, 2023, and was concluded a week later on October 6. 

The P2P team in charge of the development of Lido on the Solana Network offered the community members two options in the voting program. These included the organization leaving the Solana Network, or providing funds to the organization to sustain its operations on the Solana Network.

In the proposal by the P2P team, Lido requested that LidoDAO provide $20,000 per month to fund technical maintenance activities related to sunsetting operations on Solana over the following five months. The proposal also expressed worries about not being able to meet goals in the next year due to the challenging market conditions.

“Achieving even 2% of the market share in 2023-2024 seems improbable, particularly in the current Solana market, without any marketing assistance and given Lido DAO’s committee resolution 22 to discontinue all incentives in Solana,” the team’s proposal stated.

According to Yuri Mediakov, the P2P team invested a total of $700,000 in Lido on the Solana project to build and support the product in the past year but ended up making $220,000 in revenue, resulting in a net loss of $484,000. Therefore, in order to support the project for the next 12 months, the team would need around $1.5 million.

However, at the end of the vote, over 65 million (92.7%) of LDO tokens (voted by token holders) were in favor of sunsetting operations on Solana Network. Meanwhile, 5.1 million (7.2%) of LDO tokens voted in favor of providing funds to the organization to continue its operation on the Solana Network. The total number of Lido (LDO) tokens concluded in the vote was 70.1 million LDO tokens.

The organization highlighted in an excerpt that the decision was a necessary one to make despite how difficult it was:

Whilst this decision was difficult in the face of numerous strong relationships across the Solana ecosystem, it was deemed a necessity for the continued success of the broader Lido protocol ecosystem.

According to LidoDAO, the organization will cease accepting staking requests as of October 16, while users will have to unstake on Solana’s frontend by February 4, 2024. Failure to unstake before the deadline will result in unstaking through the Command Line Interface (CLI). In addition, Voluntary node operator off-boarding will commence on November 17, 2023.

Nonetheless, staked Solana (stSOL) token holders are still expected to receive rewards during the sunsetting process. However, Lido’s staking services are now solely supported on Ethereum and Polygon.

The P2P team has been working on Lido’s Solana project since acquiring it from Chorus One in March last year.

LidoDAO (LDO) price chart from Tradingview.com (Solana staking)