Lido Surpassed MakerDAO to Hold the Highest TVL in DeFi

Lido Finance Reports $5.8 Billion Ether Staked as of January 2

Liquid staking protocol  Lido Finance looks to have profited 

The most from the September Ethereum merge, with its total value locked (TVL) currently ranking first among other DeFi protocols.

Lido's liquid staking protocol now controls $5.9 billion in TVL, according to DeFiLlama statistics, compared to MakerDAO's $5.89 billion and AAVE's $3.7 billion.

As per Lido Finance website, as of January 2, there was $5.8 billion Ether staked. Meanwhile, roughly $23.2 million stake in Solana, $43.9 million in Polygon, $11 million in Polkadot, and $2.2 million in Kusama.

Lido's strategy gives users access to liquid Ether staking without requiring them to commit to the traditional 32 ETH requirement.

In December, Nansen's blockchain data analytics noticed that staking solutions like these have been in significant demand since Ethereum's transition to proof-of-stake.

Its report emphasized Merge's impact in introducing staked ETH as an outright cryptocurrency-native yield-bearing instrument, which has quickly outpaced other collateralized yield-bearing offerings.

Since Lido transmits received Ether to the staking protocol, its fee revenue appears to have been precisely proportional to Ethereum Proof-of-stake (PoS) revenues.

Lido announced in November 2022 that it had been collecting $1 million in fees every day since October 2022.

Meanwhile, according to a Messari announcement in September 2022, the governing body of the Maker protocol MakerDAO saw its revenue dip to just over $4 million in Q3, an 86% drop from the previous quarter, citing few liquidations and weak loan demand as the reasons for the decline.

In September, Nansen also reported that Lido owned the greatest amount of staked ETH among DeFi, with 31%, which is a substantial amount when compared to major crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, which held 15% and 8.5% respectively.

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