Staked Ether (STETH) : cours, graphique et analyse

Staked Ether, usually written stETH, is issued by Lido when you deposit ETH into its staking pool. It exists to solve an awkwardness in proof of stake: staked ETH earns rewards but cannot be spent, and stETH turns that locked position into something transferable.

How it works

Deposit ETH with Lido and you receive stETH one for one. Lido runs the deposit across a set of professional validators, and the rewards those validators earn are reflected in your balance — stETH rebases, meaning the number of tokens you hold grows rather than the price moving away from ETH. Because the token is transferable, it can be used as collateral or traded while the underlying ETH stays staked. A non-rebasing wrapper, wstETH, exists for protocols that cannot handle a changing balance.

Supply

Supply is not fixed or scheduled: it is simply the amount of ETH staked through Lido, so it rises with deposits and falls with withdrawals. Since Ethereum enabled staking withdrawals, stETH can be redeemed for ETH through the protocol, subject to the network’s exit queue. That redemption path is what anchors the price, and it is the single most important fact about the asset.

What to watch

The ratio between stETH and ETH is the thing to watch. It normally sits close to one, but it is a market price rather than a peg, and it has traded at a meaningful discount during periods of stress when holders wanted out faster than the exit queue allowed. Lido’s share of all staked ETH is also worth following, because concentration in any single staking provider is a live concern for the network’s decentralisation.

Where it is used

stETH is used heavily as collateral in lending markets and in liquidity pools, which is where the leverage in this corner of the market accumulates: borrowing against stETH to buy more ETH to stake is a common and reflexive trade.

The risks are specific and worth naming. Holding stETH adds smart-contract risk and validator-performance risk on top of ETH’s own price risk, and a validator penalised for misbehaviour reduces the pool. The discount that can open between stETH and ETH means the exit may cost more than the entry, and looped positions built on that assumption have been liquidated before. This is not a savings account, and the yield is payment for taking those risks.