For years, various blockchain projects were rumored to be future “Ethereum killers,” projects that would unseat Ether from its throne and usurp its title as the top digital asset. That day seems to have come, though it appears it was an inside job. Lido-staked Ethereum (stETH) and other liquid staking derivatives are primed to render Ether (ETH), as an asset, obsolete.
The transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoW) allows everyday decentralized finance (DeFi) users to benefit from rewards previously reserved for miners simply by holding stETH or any other ETH liquid-staking derivative. This has given way to a wave of interest across the industry, from individuals to institutions across centralized finance (CeFi) and DeFi. In the past month, the ETH liquid staking derivatives have received a ton of attention, and titans of the industry — including Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Frax — have released ETH liquid staking derivatives.