Nansen’s analysis of blockchain data shows that more and more Ether (ETH) worth $1,280 is being staked across different staking solutions in the months since Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.
Merge has been a great thing for decentralized finance (DeFi) in general, and staking solutions have been in high demand since Ethereum switched to Proof-of-Stake (PoS). This is what blockchain data from a number of different staking solutions in the Ethereum ecosystem show.
Nansen’s report talks about how Merge’s introduction of staked ETH as a cryptocurrency-native yield-earning instrument quickly surpassed other collateralized yield-earning services and showed how important the Merge was.
People still use Uniswap and other automated market makers and liquidity providers, but the total value locked up in staked Ethereum solutions is much bigger.
Over 15.4 million ETH are locked in Ethereum’s staking contract. The total amount of ETH staked is worth more than the market capitalization of the top six cryptocurrencies:”Staked ETH is the first yielding instrument to reach a significant scale in DeFi. In the next few years, it could grow a lot and change the ecosystem in a big way.
Data on liquid-staked derivatives gives Nansen some interesting ideas. When Ethereum switched to PoS, miners were replaced by validators, who had to deposit or “stake” 32 ETH in order to propose new blocks and get protocol rewards. Users who can’t or don’t want to stake 32 ETH can take part in pooled staking, which is also called “liquid staking.” This also lets users take out any ETH they have staked at any time.
Nansen’s metrics show that most liquid staking holdings are held by people who plan to keep them for a long time, while new protocols are getting more deposits than established services. Over 40% of the 14.5 million ETH staked in the ecosystem is in staking pools like Lido and Rocket Pool, which have 5.7 million ETH staked.
Lido’s stETH has a 79% market share of the total amount of staked ETH on the market. 52% of the stETH tokens are in Aave, Curve, and Lido’s wrapped stETH contract. This shows that investors and DeFi applications are interested in and can use stETH. Since the Ethereum Merge The average daily volume of trades on stETH has also gone up by 127%.
In the meantime, Coinbase’s Ethereum staking pool, cbETH, has more coins than any other asset except stETH. Over the past three months, Rocket Pool’s rETH and Coinbase’s cbETH have grown the most, by 52.5% and 43.3%, respectively.
The growth of Coinbase’s ETH staking option also shows that regular users still trust centralized entities and are happy to earn yield from staked ETH instead of more complicated on-chain yield-earning strategies
