Hasu, strategic advisor to Lido, and Tarun Chitra, founder of Gauntlet, explain everything about staked ETH, aka stETH, how it should be priced, Lido’s market dominance, and much more.

Show highlights:

• the role of Lido, what stETH is, and what its benefits are
• whether Ethereum’s lack of delegated proof of stake contributes to the need for stETH
• why stETH is not mispriced and why it doesn’t necessarily have to be worth 1 ETH
• the inherent risks associated with stETH
• how there was not enough liquidity to handle all the liquidations, especially in automated vaults on, for instance, Instadapp 
• how automated market makers work and what Curve’s amplification factor is
• whether 3AC and Celsius had a significant impact on the stETH/ETH “de-peg”
• how does the Merge affect the liquidity of stETH
• Hasu’s and Tarun’s level of confidence that the Merge will happen this year and whether it will be a success
• what will happen to the price of stETH after the redemptions are enabled
• why Lido has achieved such a level of dominance
• how Lido decreases the cost of staking and helps improve the security of the Ethereum blockchain
• whether there is going to be a “winner take all” in the liquid staking derivatives market
• how liquidity fragmentation can cause the system to blow up
• why LDO tokenholders might not have the same incentives as ETH tokenholders
• what is Lido’s new dual governance model and what is it trying to achieve
• whether Lido should self limit its market dominance
• how Lido coordinates validators and the role of the LDO token in this coordination
• what are the lessons to be learned from the stETH situation
• how governance is a liability to DeFi protocols

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021

Ava Labs: https://www.avax.network/

Oasis:  https://oasisprotocol.org/grant-programs?utm_source=unchained&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=podcast-oasis-grants-program

EPISODE LINKS

Hasu: 

Tarun: 

stETH

Lido

Bear Market:

• Insolvency of crypto lenders:
• Previous Unchained Coverage:

Cobie and Chris Burniske on How to Navigate a Crypto Bear Market: https://unchainedpodcast.com/cobie-and-chris-burniske-on-how-to-navigate-a-crypto-bear-market-ep-354/