Try Quests to earn cryptoEthereum - Liquid Staking ETH Platforms Analysis
✍️ Liquid Staking on Ethereum
Liquid staking is an alternative to locking up a user’s stake: it allows for users to stake any amount of Ethereum and to effectively unstake their ETH without the requirement of transactions being enabled. This is done through the issuance of a tokenized version of the staked funds — a sort of derivative — which can be transferred, stored, spent or traded as one would a regular token. A user would deposit their ETH into a third-party application. This app would deposit this user’s ETH into the Ethereum deposit contract for them (through the use of running their own validators), and in return would mint a representative ETH token for them (eg. stETH). This representative token will thereby let users maintain their ETH liquidity, allowing them to transfer their ETH wherever they desire all while still earning Ethereum staking rewards. → Source
✍️ Description of Work
In this dashboard, we want to examine Liquid Staking ETH platforms and compare them. For this, we examine the following cases:
- How much ETH was staked over time?
- How many unique depositors are there?
- How likely are depositors to use multiple platforms vs using a single platform?
- Are depositors Dollar cost averaging their ETH into the platforms?
- What is the avg/median/max/min/distribution of ETH deposits?
🧠 Methodology
To address this question, we use the ethereum.core schema and the ez_eth_transfers and fact_hourly_token_prices tables. Also, for each of the platforms that we check, using their contract address mentioned below and the eth_to_address field in the ez_eth_transfers table, we get the list of ETH Stake transactions for each of the platforms and to each of the sections We discuss the above mentioned and perform our calculations and analysis.
Stakewise → ==0xC874b064f465bdD6411D45734b56fac750Cda29A
StakeWise is a liquid Ethereum 2.0 staking service that allows anyone to benefit from the yields available on the Beacon Chain. StakeWise runs secure and stable institutional-grade infrastructure, combined with unique tokenomics, to provide the highest possible staking yields for its users.
Cream → ==0xcBc1065255cBc3aB41a6868c22d1f1C573AB89fd
Cream Finance is a decentralized lending protocol that provides financial services to individuals, institutions, and protocols. It is a permissionless, open-source, and blockchain-independent protocol that supports Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Fantom.
Rocket Pool → ==0x4D05E3d48a938db4b7a9A59A802D5b45011BDe58
Rocket Pool is the first truly decentralised Ethereum staking pool. Liquid Staking, Audited SC, and Minimised Penalty Risk. Unlike solo stakers, who are required to put 32 ETH up for deposit to create a new validator, Rocket Pool nodes only need to deposit 16 ETH per validator.
Lido → ==0xae7ab96520DE3A18E5e111B5EaAb095312D7fE84
Lido is a liquid staking service, that lets users deposit assets like Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and others to earn a yield. Whenever users stake these assets, they receive another staked version of the same token, which can be used elsewhere in the market.
Direct Staking → ==0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa
Staking is the act of depositing 32 ETH to activate validator software. As a validator you’ll be responsible for storing data, processing transactions, and adding new blocks to the blockchain. This will keep Ethereum secure for everyone and earn you new ETH in the process.
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
Source → Defillama
✅ Observations
- According to the results obtained from the comparison of the platforms, it can be seen that Direct staking has the highest amount (in terms of ETH, USD) staked for ETH, followed by Lido. In the next are Rocket pool, Stakewise, Ankr and Cream respectively
- In terms of the number of Unique Depositors, Lido ranks first and then Direct staking has the highest number of unique depositors. In the next are Rocket pool, Stakewise, Ankr and Cream respectively
- The number of unique depositors for Lido is increasing compared to others
- It can be seen that after the Depg of UST on May 11 and 12, 2022, the amount of ETH staking decreased and lost its upward trend.
- It can be seen that recently due to the Ethereum Merge Fund (Sep 15, 2022), the amount of ETH stake is decreasing
8 → How likely are depositors to use multiple platforms vs using a single platform?
To deal with this section, we get the total list of depositors of each platform, then we union them together and group them based on depositors and count the platforms (group by depositors and count(platform_type)) that have used it, then we categorize based on use multiple platforms and using a single platform, depositors who have used 2 or more than 2 platforms under the use multiple platforms category and depositors who have only used one platform under the category of using a single platform.
✅ Observations
Based on the results obtained from Lido and Direct staking, which have the largest amount of depositors and ETH stake, it was found that out of the top 5 depositors, most of the depositors do not stake their entire capital in one place and stake ETH depending on the dollar price of ETH in several time frames.
✔️ Final Conclusion
> After examining Liquid Staking ETH platforms, which include Lido, Stakewise, Ankr, Rocket Pool, Cream and Direct staking, we came to the conclusion that in terms of the amount of ETH staked, Direct staking has the highest amount, followed by Lido. Also, in terms of the number of unique depositors, the Lido platform has the largest number of depositors, followed by Direct staking. Also, the amount of ETH staked over time, especially after UST depegging and close to the ethereum merge event, has a decreasing trend. Also, about 3% of all depositors use multiple platforms to stake ETH, and 97% of them use only one platform. It was also found that top depositors stake their ETH over time and in several time frames