Lido (stETH): liquid staking rating breakdown
The counter-example to our own thesis, and we are giving it full credit. Lido’s advertised APR is already net of its 10% fee, the formula is written in its documentation, and its public API returns the same number the front end shows. It is the cleanest fee disclosure in the sector — and it is the reason we were able to derive Ethereum’s true gross rate at all, which nobody else publishes.
The counter-example to our own thesis, and we are giving it full credit. Lido’s advertised APR is already net of its 10% fee, the formula is written in its documentation, and its public API returns the same number the front end shows.
How the score is built
Each criterion is scored 0–10 and weighted. The median column is the middle score across every entry in this ranking, so a row reads as a position rather than a number.
| Criterion | What we measured | Weight | Score | Category median | Rank | Weighted gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Is “liquid” actually true? | — | 35% | 5 | 4.5 | 4 of 12 | +0.17 |
| Do they tell you what they take? | YES — formula published advertised APR is net of fees · sourced · 2026-07-15 · source | 25% | 10 | 6 | 1 of 12 | +1.00 |
| Net yield against the real ceiling | 2.226 net yield · sourced · 2026-07-15 · source | 20% | 8 | 8 | 4 of 12 | 0.00 |
| Custody and slashing | — | 12% | 8 | 8 | 6 of 12 | 0.00 |
| Restaking risk, disclosed | — | 8% | 10 | 10 | 1 of 12 | 0.00 |
Measured 15 July 2026 · weights and method · decided by do they tell you what they take?, worth +1.00 points against the median
Is “liquid” actually true?: 5/10
The question every comparison omits, and the one that has actually cost people money. We take the token’s outstanding value and set it against the depth genuinely available to sell into — on-chain pools, and daily turnover. The ratios are brutal: a token with a billion dollars outstanding and two million dollars of exit is not liquid, it is a building with an emergency exit sized for one person. Backing does not save you. Depth does.
Scored 5 of 10 against a category median of 4.5, which places it 4th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 35% weight that is 0.17 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 2.
Do they tell you what they take?: 10/10
Not the fee percentage — whether the yield they SHOW you is the yield you GET. Some publish the formula and hand you the raw numbers to check. Others advertise a rate that explicitly excludes their commission, and say so only in a support article nobody reads. And the worst simply state a number and never mention a take rate at all, which we then have to derive by dividing.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 6, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 25% weight that is 1.00 points above the median contribution of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 3.
Net yield against the real ceiling: 8/10
Measured against the gross rate the network actually pays, which we derive rather than accept: the protocol APR, before anyone’s cut. Every token is scored on how much of that it gives back to you.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 4th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 20% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Custody and slashing: 8/10
Do you hold an asset or an IOU? And when a validator is slashed, what actually covers it — a contractual claim you own, a fund of undisclosed size, or a discretionary vote by token-holders? Note that Solana has no protocol slashing at all, which is a real structural advantage its LSTs are never given credit for.
Scored 8 of 10 against a category median of 8, which places it 6th of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 12% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 9, the worst 7.
Restaking risk, disclosed: 10/10
A liquid staking token must not quietly become a restaked one. We check whether the product takes on EigenLayer-style obligations, and whether that extra risk is quantified anywhere for the holder. A plain LST scores full marks here by simply not doing it.
Scored 10 of 10 against a category median of 10, which places it 1st of 12 among liquid staking on this criterion. At a 8% weight that is exactly level with the median of the weighted total. The best score in the category is 10, the worst 10.
Other measurements
Its nearest neighbours in this ranking
| # | Entry | Do they tell you what they take? | How it differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Marinade (mSOL) | 10 | Level on do they tell you what they take?; the gap is elsewhere. |
| 4 | Jito (JitoSOL) | 7 | Behind by 3 on do they tell you what they take?. |
| 6 | Rocket Pool (rETH) | 8 | Behind by 2 on do they tell you what they take?. |
| 7 | Frax Ether (frxETH / sfrxETH) | 4 | Behind by 6 on do they tell you what they take?. |
Incidents priced into this score
- 2022-06-13 — stETH traded down to about 0.93 ETH (−6.5%) as Celsius and 3AC were forced to sell into a Curve pool that had drained from $4.6bn to ~$621m. Never a solvency event — redemptions simply were not enabled yet, so the DEX was the only exit. [users made whole: n/a] [source]
- 2023-04-13 — A node operator was slashed after a client bug re-imported deleted keys (~13.77 ETH). Cover was paid — but only after an on-chain governance vote, not automatically. [users made whole: confirmed] [source]
Questions about this score
Does Lido hide its fees?
+
No, and we looked. The advertised rate is already net of the 10% fee, the formula — user APR equals protocol APR times one minus the fee — is in the documentation, and the API returns the same figure the interface displays. The gap between advertised and real yield that we went hunting for lives at the custodians, not here.
How much stETH could actually be sold?
+
About $113m of on-chain depth against $17.2bn outstanding — 0.66% — with roughly 0.07% of supply turning over daily. It printed a 6.5% discount in June 2022 when one forced seller met a drained pool. Backing is not the question; depth is, and this is the largest example of the gap between the two.