Top Ethereum liquid staking protocol Lido’s governance token has emerged as a rare bright spot in a battered DeFi sector, gaining 30% in the past 30 days while every other major token has slumped into the red.
$LDO is trading at $0.42, up 12% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
The contrast with its DeFi colleagues is stark. In the same 30-day period, AAVE was down 7%, Uniswap (UNI) was down 15%, Curve’s CRV was down 9%, and Etherfi’s ETHFI was down 16%. MORPHO was the closest to breakeven among the top DeFi tokens, losing only 0.5%.
The catalyst behind it $LDOThe company’s outperformance is a $20 million buyback program. The Lido DAO voted to spend up to 10,000 stETH ($23 million) on buybacks $LDO open market tokens, with purchases routed through centralized exchanges and market makers in batches of 1,000 stETH due to limited on-chain liquidity. Each batch requires a separate Easy Track governance move to execute. At current prices, about 8% of the entire program could retire $LDO‘s circulating supply, according to the proposal.
The buyback coincides with a broader strategic pivot. In December, the DAO approved a $60 million budget to take Lido beyond its core liquid staking business. That plan started taking shape in March when the protocol launched EarnUSD, the first stablecoin vault, which distributes USDC and USDT deposits across credit markets, real asset integrations and structured positions.
But despite the demonstration $LDO remains more than 94% lower than its peak of $7.30 in November 2021, and Lido’s share of the $ETH has fallen to a low of about 23% this year, according to a Dune dashboard.
The buyback proposal itself acknowledged the token’s distressed valuation and mentioned the gap between $LDOLido’s price and revenues “one of the most significant disruptions” in the project’s history.