Lido Finance drops Solana staking after DAO decision

Over 92% of Lido’s community chose to discontinue the product

October 17, 2023 11:08 am

ravipat/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

Lido Finance, known for its liquid staking solution, will no longer accept new staking requests for Solana tokens. This comes after Lido token owners voted in large numbers to pause the service.

After many discussions on the Lido DAO forum, the token holders chose to gradually end the use of the protocol on Solana.

“After much discussion and a vote by Lido DAO members, it was decided that the best course of action would be to wind down Lido on Solana,” the team said in a blog on Monday.

“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,” they added.

Newsletter

Subscribe to The Breakdown

The decision to phase out Lido on Solana occurred following a proposal submitted to the Lido DAO by the development team, P2P Validator, in early September.

This proposal detailed the successes, obstacles and potential future of Lido on Solana.

The P2P team laid out two distinct paths for consideration. One option proposed keeping Lido on Solana running, with Lido DAO’s financial support. This plan called for $200,000 every quarter for development, $600,000 per year for marketing and $100,000 for customer support, totaling $1.5 million over the next 12 months.

The other option was to simply end, or “sunset,” Lido on Solana, taking the project in a different direction.

Since taking over, the P2P team spent around $700,000 on Lido on Solana, earned $220,000 and faced a loss of $484,000, according to the proposal’s author, Yuri Mediakov.

More than 92% of the Lido community voted to end the product rather than keep it going, according to a vote that closed on Oct. 5.

Those holding stSOL, Lido’s tokenized version of staked Solana (SOL), will continue to receive network rewards throughout the sunsetting process. Support for the Lido on Solana Frontend will end on Feb. 4.

Solana’s native token SOL has dropped over 21% in the last 12 months, and last traded around $24.41 on Tuesday, according to data from Blockworks Research.

Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

The Breakdown: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.
0xResearch: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst.

Tags

Newsletter

The Breakdown

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Digital Asset Summit 2026

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

buy tickets learn more

recent research

Research

Kinetiq Protocol: From LST Infrastructure to HIP-3 Deployer

Kinetiq has established itself as Hyperliquid's dominant liquid staking protocol, holding 82.5% of LST market share with $610M in TVL. The protocol is now expanding beyond its kHYPE staking core into higher take-rate verticals: iHYPE for institutional custody rails, Launch for HIP-3 capital formation, and Markets for builder-deployed perpetuals. We view Markets, launching Jan. 12, as the highest-potential product line given its mechanically scalable, activity-linked unit economics. Near-term revenue remains anchored by kHYPE's KIP-2 fee schedule (~$1.6M annualized), while Markets provides embedded optionality if HIP-3 economics normalize post-Growth Mode. KNTQ's setup is relatively clean: zero insider unlocks until November 2026, 6.2% buyback yield from staking revenue, and cleared airdrop overhang. Risks center on unproven Markets execution, declining kHYPE TVL despite ongoing incentives, and competition from Hyperliquid's native initiatives.

by Research Team