Decentralized protocol Lido Finance, which popularized the concept of liquid steaking, has achieved net profit for the first time in its four years of operation. The company had revenues of $99 million in 2024, with expenses of $94 million, generating a net profit of $5 million. The data was provided by consulting firm Steakhouse Financial.
According to Steakhouse Financial founder Adrian Vasiljevic, Lido's profits are largely due to the rise in the price of Ethereum, which has increased 67% since the beginning of 2024, from $2,350 to over $4,000. The increase in the value of ETH has significantly boosted the protocol's revenue.
Demand for liquid staking services from users and institutional investors also contributed to the growth. In January, the total amount of blocked ETH increased by 5% to 9.81 million ETH. Lido's core product, stETH, which provides liquidity for staked ETH, remains popular with users.
Abandoning Polygon and focusing on Ethereum
Lido Finance has discontinued support for the Polygon POS network and is fully focused on the Ethereum ecosystem. The decision was made after discussions on the Lido DAO forum and a vote of LDO token holders. The main reason for the rejection was scalability issues on the Polygon network.
In addition to this, Lido has launched a new steaking module. This tool allows users to work as node operators on the Ethereum network without having to obtain permissions. The innovation reinforces Lido's commitment to decentralization.
The protocol's local token, LDO, has risen 82% over the past 30 days to reach $2.11. However, its value has dropped 7.7% in the last 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $1.9 billion.
Lido Finance's first-ever earnings release was made possible by increased demand for Ethereum staking and the rising value of ETH. The protocol continues to maintain its leadership in the liquid steaking market and is developing new strategies for further growth.
With many Ethereum-related projects showing positive momentum in 2024, LIDO is far from the last project that will allow investors to make money.
