Lido Launches Vaults and Lido Earn as Staking Yields Compress

Lido DAO has approved a $60M 2026 operating budget and a strategy to move beyond liquid staking as Ethereum staking yields compress. The protocol says base APRs now sit around 3–5%, down from prior cycles, driven by increased validator participation. In January 2026, Lido V3 and its stVaults launched on Ethereum mainnet. The upgrade shifts from a single staking product to modular vault infrastructure, letting institutional operators customize vaults for custody, compliance, or yield needs. Lido Earn is also live with EarnETH and EarnUSD, using structured strategies with daily compounding aimed at returns above base staking rates. The 2026 budget splits into $43.8M for core operations and growth, plus $16.2M in discretionary funds for high-impact items such as liquidity incentives and institutional product development. On infrastructure, Lido plans Curated Module v2, Staking Router v3, and “ValMart,” a validator routing system targeting performance, cost, and decentralization at the same time. Lido currently runs 683+ node operators. Revenue diversification is a key theme: Lido holds roughly 28–30% of all staked ETH, with TVL fluctuating between ~$18B and ~$40B. Lido is also pursuing capital-markets access. Vaneck filed a U.S. SEC S-1 for a stETH-referenced ETF on Oct. 20, 2025 (pending as of March 2026), and WisdomTree launched a 100% stETH-backed Physical Lido Staked Ether ETP in Europe in Dec. 2025. For traders, this is a signal that Lido is pushing “staking as a core utility revenue line” while expanding into institutional wrappers and yield products—potentially supporting ETH demand indirectly even as staking yields fall.