Lido Eyes $20M Token Buyback as LDO Hits Deep Discount

Lido is considering a large one-time intervention to support its governance token, with the protocol’s Ecosystem Operations team proposing the use of up to 10,000 stETH from treasury reserves to buy back LDO on the open market. 

At current prices, that would equal about US$20 million (AU$29 million) and could remove roughly 65 million LDO from circulation, or about 8% of the current supply.

The proposal frames the move as an exceptional response rather than routine treasury management. 

According to the team, LDO’s market price has diverged from the protocol’s underlying position more sharply than at any other point in its history. 

The buyback would be carried out in 1,000 stETH increments across CoW Swap, Uniswap, Binance and OKX, with Lido’s Growth Committee authorised to execute the trades alongside market-making partners. The funds would come entirely from stETH already held in treasury, with no new token issuance.

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Plunging Revenue

The buyback proposal comes even as Lido remains the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum (ETH), controlling about 23% of all staked ETH. That share is still dominant, but it is down from more than 28% in 2024, reflecting stronger competition from exchanges, custody providers and restaking products.

Financially, the protocol also weakened last year. Revenue fell 23% to US$40.5 million (AU$59 million) in 2025 from US$52.4 million (AU$76 million) in 2024. Staking fee revenue declined to US$37.4 million (AU$54 million), while gross staking rewards dropped 18% to US$846.7 million (AU$1.23 billion). 

The proposed treasury action is separate from Lido’s NEST buyback system, which remains inactive because market and revenue conditions have not yet been met. No vote date has been set.

LDO Nears All-Time Low

The backdrop is a long decline in LDO relative to Ethereum. On March 27, the token traded around US$0.27 (AU$0.39), only marginally above its all-time low of US$0.2714 (AU$0.39) reached on March 8. 

Lido’s governance discussion described the token as trading at about a 70% discount to the ETH-denominated levels that were common over much of the past two years. 

Selling by large holders added to the pressure, with wallets holding between 10 million and 1 billion LDO unloading about 80 million tokens between October 2025 and early 2026. That left the token with a market value of roughly US$260 million (AU$377 million).

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