GOOSE-2025 & EGGs-2025 Final Report
Executive Summary
This report presents the 2025 execution update following the Snapshot vote GOOSE 2024 cycle: Lido DAO goals for 2025 (GOOSE 2025).
In 2025, Lido DAO reconfirmed its long-term goals:
- stETH is the most used token in the Ethereum ecosystem
- Best validator set in the market
- Effective and decentralized governance
Building on these goals, the execution focus for 2025 was established:
- stETH: Expansion through a new product line
- Validator Set: Establishment of a validator marketplace
- Governance: Aligning tokenholder incentives with Lido’s long-term success
2025 unfolded under a structural shift in Ethereum staking. Network-wide APR compression, capital rotation away from Simple LST toward exchange and institutional staking, and intensified competition reduced the size of the segment where Lido holds category leadership. Gross Revenue declined 18.2% year over year (-17.4% in ETH terms). The decline was driven by net staking outflows and network-wide APR compression (especially in terms of Execution Layer rewards).
Execution focused on expanding beyond a single product and strengthening protocol resilience. Initial progress included the launch of Lido Earn, which by year-end offered three vault strategies (GG Vault (GVV), stRATEGY Vault, and Decentralized Validator Vault (DVV)), the phase-1 launch of stVaults, continued Community Staking Module (CSM) expansion, Curated Module fee revision, and the activation of Dual Governance.
Key metrics and outcomes for the year are summarized below.
Key Developments
Several initiatives were delivered in 2025 to expand the protocol beyond a single product and strengthen its long-term resilience. Key developments included:
stETH & Product Line Expansion
- Lido Earn launched: 77k ETH TVL by year-end; establishes a product line for APR-maxis.
- stVaults phase-1 launched: This protocol expansion widens the addressable market and allows node operators to act as builders. It enables configurable staking infrastructure for institutional and specialized use cases, leveraging stETH’s market-leading liquidity and DeFi integrations.
- WisdomTree ETP live: first liquid staking ETP in Europe; $50M AUM at the launch. Opens a regulated institutional distribution channel for stETH exposure.
Validator Set & Validator Marketplace
- Curated Module fee revision and CSM economics increased the DAO’s effective share of protocol rewards at year-end, to 6.10% (+23% YoY) (last week of December 2025 actuals), without changing the 10% protocol fee.
- The set of node operators running validators on Lido has expanded to 700+ unique active node operators, improving the protocol’s decentralization.
- CSM enabled permissionless validator participation and saw rapid growth following its launch. By year-end, the module included 412 active node operators.
Governance & LDO Tokenomics
- Dual Governance launched: introduces a protocol-level safety mechanism for stETH holders, strengthening long-term governance alignment and significantly reducing counterparty risk, especially relevant for institutional stakers.
- Governance transparency improved through quarterly Tokenholder Update Calls, clearer Guided Open Objective Setting Exercise (GOOSE) and Ecosystem Grant Request (EGG) procedures, and annual-style execution and financial reporting.
New Foundations Leadership
Also, during the year, the Foundations introduced new leadership to guide the protocol through its next phase. Executive Director Lido Labs Foundation Vasiliy Shapovalov, with Isidoros Passadis serving as Chief of Staking. Sam Kim served as Chief Legal & Operating Officer until the end of December 2025, when he stepped down and was succeeded by Kate Zueva as Deputy Chief Operating Officer. Under this leadership, the organization increased its focus on execution, product expansion, and financial discipline. In parallel, cost-optimization measures, including a reduction in contributor headcount, were implemented to better align the operating model with market conditions. These changes improved operating efficiency and strengthened the DAO’s financial resilience.
What Comes Next
In 2026, execution will focus on scaling adoption of the expanded product line around stETH, completing the validator marketplace, and advancing LDO alignment under clear treasury-surplus guardrails.
1. Intro
This report provides the 2025 update as mandated by the Snapshot vote, explicitly referencing the GOOSE 2024 cycle: Lido DAO goals for 2025 (GOOSE 2025) proposal.
GOOSE is the DAO’s framework for setting three-year objectives and defining annual goals aligned with those objectives.
The three objectives for 2025 were:
- Effective and decentralized governance
- Best validator set in the market
- stETH is the most used token in the Ethereum ecosystem
For 2025, these were operationalized into three priorities: expanding stETH into a diversified product line, establishing a validator marketplace, and strengthening LDO’s role in governance through improved incentive alignment and protocol safeguards.
This report is prepared by Lido Labs Foundation in coordination with the Lido Ecosystem and Lido Alliance Foundations (together, the Foundations). These entities received grant funding from the DAO to execute GOOSE 2025 initiatives. This report reviews delivery against those objectives and priorities from January 1 to December 31, 2025. It also includes market and execution context, financial data, and treasury position changes for the same period.
2. Market Context and Strategic Reset
Market Environment
The structural shift in Ethereum staking that began in 2024 continued and intensified throughout 2025. Network-wide staking APR compression, driven by an execution layer (EL) rewards drop due to network scaling, and a consensus layer (CL) rewards decrease, predetermined by the issuance curve, plus increased product fragmentation and evolving capital preferences, reshaped demand across segments.
The Simple LST segment, historically Lido’s strongest category, had already begun contracting in 2024 and continued to decline as a share of total staking in 2025. Capital rotated toward exchange staking, institutional low-risk staking, and the APR-maxis segment, where liquid restaking providers heavily incentivized demand with protocol token subsidies. This rotation altered the competitive landscape and compressed market share across liquid staking providers.
In this context, Lido’s market share declined. The compression reflects ongoing market rotation and intensified competition, not a loss of category leadership. Lido remains the largest liquid staking solution with 24.12% of all staked ETH.
Leadership and Execution Reset
Rewards compression and slower staking growth required operational adjustments.
In Q2, the Foundations introduced new leadership. In the second half of the year, cost discipline was enforced across organizations, including a 15% reduction in contributor headcount and Token Reward Plan (TRP) adjustments. After a cost rationalisation exercise, total expenses for the year were $39.1M, excluding TRP costs, well below the approved 77M grant and 8% lower than in 2024 ($42.4M). TRP expenses decreased from $9.7M to $6.4M annually, a 34% reduction. Year over year, total Foundations’ expenses decreased by $6.6M, resulting in a 13% reduction instead of the planned increase.
Strategic Reprioritization
Over the past years, Lido contributors focused on building core infrastructure for secure, decentralized Ethereum staking, strengthening validator decentralization, governance mechanisms, and protocol resilience. By 2025, that foundational phase was largely in place. The strategic priority shifted from building the core system to preparing it for the next phase of growth while making the core staking economics more resilient.
This reprioritization centered on four priorities:
- Continued strengthening of protocol and DAO resilience.
- Restructuring staking modules economics.
- Targeted expansion into APR-maxis and low-risk staking segments.
- Diversification of revenue streams.
This transition reflects a move from infrastructure consolidation to product-driven expansion, while maintaining leadership in the Simple LST segment.
3. GOOSE-2025 Achievements
3.1 stETH & Product Line Expansion
The primary objective for 2025 was to transition from a single-product staking model to a broader product line that addresses underserved segments, including institutional stakers and APR-maxis. Below is a summary of progress toward this objective.
3.1.1 stVaults (Lido V3) – Phase 1 Launched December 2025
Lido V3 introduced non-custodial, over-collateralized staking vaults (stVaults), enabling stakers to opt into specific operators and strategies while minting stETH. stVaults operationalize the transition from a monolithic staking model to a modular product architecture.
Following the Phase 1 mainnet launch in December, Phase 2 went live on January 29, 2026, fulfilling the GOOSE-2025 goal of product line expansion. The DeFi Wrapper, a reference implementation of an stVault and DeFi strategy combination, is already available for builders and also has custom strategy support. stETH minting in permissionlessly created stVaults is expected in late Q1 2026 as part of the next rollout phase.
Early ecosystem signals include:
- Linea plans to power its Yield Boost mechanism by staking bridged ETH through stVaults
- The Pier Two Ă— RockSolid AutoPlus Looped ETH Vault is among the first live implementations of the architecture.
- Nansen is building a transparent staking product combining stVaults with analytics and DeFi strategy layers
- P2P.org is developing modular institutional vault structures that support dedicated staking and composable yield products.
Institutional Infrastructure providers such as Kiln, Northstake, Solstice, and Everstake are exploring stVault-based configurations for institutional staking products.
3.1.2 Lido Earn – Launched August 2025
Lido Earn addresses the APR-maxis segment, stakers who prioritize the highest returns, which expanded materially as staking demand rotated toward higher-yield products.
The product launched in August 2025 and provides a structured layer for deploying stETH into curated yield strategies while preserving the liquidity and composability of liquid staking.
By year-end, traction included:
- TVL: 77,002 ETH
- Annualized result (30d MA): $1.1M
- Active vaults: 3
Lido Earn expands stETH utility beyond passive liquid staking and creates an additional revenue source for the DAO Treasury.
3.1.3 Institutional & Low-Risk Staking
WisdomTree Physical Lido Staked Ether (LIST) — WisdomTree, a global Asset Manager with over $140 billion in assets under management and numerous digital asset ETFs and ETPs, chose stETH for its European liquid staking ETP, which it launched in December 2025. This is the first European ETP holding only stETH minted via the Lido protocol and is listed on leading European exchanges, including Xetra, SIX, and Euronext. The product’s launch AUM was about $50M.
VanEck Lido Staked ETH ETF — S-1 filed with the U.S. SEC in 2025.
If approved, the fund would hold stETH and provide regulated U.S. exposure to Ethereum staking through an ETF structure.
Also, in 2025, stETH integrations expanded across custody and institutional venues, strengthening access rails:
- Hex Trust (Sep 2025) - enabled stETH custody support and ETH staking via the Lido protocol
- BitGo (Jul 2025) - enabled ETH staking via the Lido protocol and direct stETH minting for users in Europe and Asia
- Caladan (Jul 2025) - integrated stETH as accepted collateral for institutional OTC and structured products
- Komainu (May 2025) - introduced multi-jurisdictional stETH custody with support for using stETH as collateral for off-exchange financing and settlement
- Crypto Finance AG (Jan 2025) - added custody support for stETH
These integrations expand institutional on-ramps and strengthen stETH’s position in regulated capital markets.
3.2 Validator Set & Validator Marketplace
The node operator set expanded in 2025, driven by permissionless and DVT-based modules.
Additional validator and node operator metrics can be found in the quarterly updated Lido Validator and Node Operator Metrics (VaNOM) tool.
Business Impact of Validator Expansion
- Supply chain diversification: reduced reliance on a single operator or infrastructure provider.
- Staking rewards protection: lower exposure to correlated failures, slashing events, and operational downtime.
- Cost leverage: increased competition among operators.
3.2.1 CSM — Permissionless Entry & v2 Upgrade
CSM became fully permissionless in January 2025, lowering barriers to validator participation. CSM v2, launched on October 2, introduced:
- The Identified Community Stakers (ICS) framework, which has enfranchised hundreds of identified home stakers by allowing them to operate validators at slightly better terms than a normal permissionless user of CSM
- A more precise Performance Oracle, combined with a strikes system that allows the module to self-heal in the case that node operators underperform
- Triggerable Withdrawals (EIP-7002) support, increasing protocol security
- Revised economics for node operators using CSM:
- Preferential node operator rewards share (6%) for the first 16 validators of an ICS Node Operator
- 3.5% node operator rewards share for all other validators and for the permissionless node operator type
Permissionless access is now paired with enforceable performance standards and differentiated operator economics.
3.2.2 Curated Module Fee Revision
In response to staking market fee compression, the Curated Module economics were adjusted by tokenholder vote from a 5% blanket node operator share of rewards to a system based on node operator tiers.
New baseline node operator tiers:
- Standard: 3.50%
- Extra Effort: 4.00%
- Client-Team: 4.50%
The protocol-level fee (10%) remains unchanged, resulting in higher DAO net rewards.
Lido Core DAO Share of Staking Rewards Evolution
*Voting on the DAO rewards rate changes took place in mid-December with enactment on December 24, and the actual data resulting from these changes is provided in the table above for December 25-31.
3.2.3 Toward a Validator Marketplace
Work progressed on Curated Module v2 (CMv2) and Staking Router v3 (SRv3), planned for H2 2026. These protocol upgrades aim to introduce:
- Fee competition between operators
- More granular stake allocation based on a weights system, with the ability to rebalance stake distribution if needed
- Operator-type differentiation
- Performance-influenced stake (de)allocation
Together, these initiatives will be the final steps required to complete the transition to the validator marketplace.
3.3 Governance & LDO Tokenomics
3.3.1 Dual Governance — Activated July 2025
Dual Governance introduced a protocol-level objection mechanism that allows stETH holders, under certain conditions, to delay governance decisions and exit before undesirable changes take effect. By linking opposition intensity to timelock duration, the mechanism increases the cost of contentious proposals and allows time for corrective action.
Strategic impact
- Reduces governance tail risk for stETH holders.
- Strengthens protocol-level safeguards.
- Improves institutional confidence in Lido’s risk framework.
- Serves as a mechanism to signal stETH user agreement (or disagreement) with proposed protocol changes.
3.3.2 LDO Alignment — Economic Framework & NEST
In 2025, governance work progressed toward stronger economic alignment between protocol performance and LDO. By end-year the alignment framework follows these main principles:
- Relevant protocol rewards flow to the DAO, not the Foundations
- Treasury surplus belongs to the DAO
- LDO tokenholder votes govern the treasury
- Foundations operate under defined DAO oversight and intervention rights
- Transparent annual financial reporting is established
The next step is to formalize a direct link between protocol performance and LDO.
NEST (Network Economic Support Tokenomics) – a modular, future-proof system that, when supplied with stETH, enables stETH to be swapped for LDO – establishes the infrastructure.
In December, development of the first manual module was completed. It represents a governance-controlled mechanism enabling manually triggered any-to-any token swaps. Activation requires a DAO vote and is proposed to be launched together with the future automated buyback module.
Building on this infrastructure, forum discussions are ongoing regarding automated treasury surplus–funded liquid buybacks. Under the proposed design, protocol-generated staking rewards would be used to acquire LDO from the open market and deploy the tokens into an LDO/wstETH liquidity position held by the DAO. This structure creates a direct link between protocol performance and LDO while maintaining market liquidity. The intent is to ensure any value-routing mechanism activates only when a genuine treasury surplus exists and scales with improved protocol economics.
The initiative is currently in technical validation and parameter research. Release is targeted for Q2 2026.
3.3.3 Governance Participation & Process Discipline
Quorums were consistently met in 2025, with only a single vote failing to reach the quorum, a significant improvement compared to the three no-quorum votes recorded in 2024. The DAO remained operationally responsive throughout the year with active voting power on Aragon: 87M LDO.
The Public Delegates program continued to support participation. Throughout the year, 10 active public delegates consistently participated in governance, collectively securing roughly 25M LDO. This delegation structure significantly improves decision-making stability by ensuring a reliable base of engaged governance participants, while maintaining open participation for the broader community.
Significant progress has been made in making the work of the Foundations more transparent, understandable, and traceable:
- Launch of quarterly Tokenholder Update Calls
- Publication of a preliminary GOOSE 2025 progress report in Q3
- Clearer procedures for GOOSE 2026 and EGG proposals
- Added structured annual reporting on GOOSE Goals progress and overall DAO finance.
4. Funding & Financial Overview
2025 unfolded under rewards compression driven by staking outflows and a network-wide decline in staking APR. Total Revenue was $40.5M, reflecting lower net staking fees and APR compression.
At the same time, Foundations’ expenses were reduced year over year from $52.1M to $45.5M, resulting in a 13% decrease. It was below the approved aggregate grants, reflecting cost-optimization measures across the Foundations.
Overview
| mUSD | 2024Y | 2025Y | Δ | Δ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gross Staking Rewards | 1,034.5 | 846.7 | (187.8) | -18% |
| Gross Revenue | 103.5 | 84.7 | (18.8) | -18% |
| Cost of Revenue (staking rewards to NOs and NOs rebates) | (51.9) | (43.1) | 8.7 | -17% |
| Cost of Revenue (deposit referrals)* | (3.1) | (4.1) | (1.0) | 32% |
| Net Revenue from staking fees (incl. stVaults) | 48.5 | 37.4 | (11.1) | -23% |
| Other Revenue | ||||
| New Product: Lido Earn | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 100% |
| Treasury Management (stETH APY, sUSDS, (T)MMFs) | 3.9 | 2.7 | (1.2) | -31% |
| Total Revenue | 52.4 | 40.5 | (11.9) | -23% |
| Total Operating Expenses | (40.9) | (40.7) | 0.2 | 0% |
| Operating Expenses | (28.8) | (33.0) | (4.2) | 15% |
| TRP costs | (9.7) | (6.4) | 3.2 | -34% |
| Lido Ecosystem Grant Organization (LEGO) grants, incl. LDO-denominated | (1.5) | (1.1) | 0.4 | -28% |
| Other income and expenses | (0.9) | (0.1) | 0.8 | -84% |
| Growth & liquidity | (11.2) | (4.8) | 6.4 | -57% |
| Liquidity Rewards | (11.2) | (4.8) | 6.4 | -57% |
| Total Foundations’ Expenses excl. TRP costs | (42.4) | (39.1) | 3.3 | -8% |
| Total Foundations’ Expenses | (52.1) | (45.5) | 6.6 | -13% |
| Total Treasury Surplus | 0.3 | (5.0) | (5.3) |
*Deposit referrals were reclassified from Growth & liquidity to Cost of Revenue (deposit referrals)
Approved Grants
​​While the DAO approved up to $77M in grants in 2025, this figure represents the maximum authorized grant rather than the amount actually withdrawn from the Treasury. Actual spending was limited to $45.5M in total Foundations’ expenses. Any balance above the reported $45.5M is not considered available for future use by the Foundations, which no longer have a mandate to spend it. Where such funds remained in the Treasury, they were never drawn. Where they continue to be held on Foundations’ multisigs, they are reported below as part of the Treasury position and would only be used under separate grant mandates.
- $11.1M for Q1 ’25 expenses
- $34.88M for Q2–Q4 ’25 expenses (per Lido Labs Foundation request)
- $10.61M for Q2–Q4 ’25 expenses (per Lido Ecosystem Foundation request)
- $0.3M for Q1–Q4 ’25 expenses (per Lido Alliance Foundation)
- $2M Lido Ecosystem Grant Organization (LEGO) Committee ongoing grant ($0.5M quarterly)
- $8.5M Liquidity Observation Lab (H1 grant)
- $8.5M Liquidity Observation Lab (H2 grant)
- $0.3M Delegate Incentivization Programme grants (link, link)
- $0.8M Community Lifeguards Initiative (CLI) ($0.2M quarterly)
Additionally, three more grants were approved earlier:
- $2M bug bounty emergency reserve (largely unused)
- 22M LDO TRP grant from 2020 (partially unspent). The TRP grant usage is reflected in the financial statements on an accrual basis as part of the TRP costs.
- 3,000 stETH for the Rewards Share Program approved in 2023
This fragmentation made it difficult to assess total spend, track performance across workstreams, and maintain consistent financial controls. In addition, 2025 brought leadership changes and shifting priorities, leading to a reprioritisation of spend across workstreams and inter-entity cost reallocation. The Foundations have since refined monitoring and mandate-alignment frameworks to ensure better discipline in 2026.
The earlier stated $58.9M was based on a subset of the largest requests. To improve transparency and avoid inflated grant requests and fragmentation, 2026 grants were requested in a consolidated format.
Treasury Position
| 2024Y | 2025Y | Δ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| stETH in DAO Treasury at the end of the period (amount) | 34,161 | 33,561 | (599.3) | |||
| stETH in DAO Treasury at the end of the period (value in mUSD) | 114.0 | 99.6 | (14.3) | |||
| Stablecoins in DAO Treasury, mUSD | 25.1 | 21.9 | (3.2) | |||
| stETH in Foundations multisigs (amount) | 7,323 | 8,192 | 869.2 | |||
| stETH in Foundations multisigs (value in mUSD) | 24.4 | 24.3 | (0.1) | |||
| Stablecoins in Foundations multisigs, mUSD | 3.7 | 7.0 | 3.3 | |||
| Fiat balances in Foundations accounts | 0.7 | 0.8 | 0.1 | |||
| LP positions / funds for market making, mUSD | 0.0 | 3.1 | 3.1 | |||
| Liquid assets Matic, ZK, mUSD | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | |||
| Liquid assets wstETH, mUSD | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.4 | |||
| stSol in Solana treasury Multisig (amount) | 13,819 | 0 | (13,819) | |||
| stSol in Solana treasury Multisig (mUSD) | 3.3 | 0.0 | (3.3) | |||
| Total Treasury in USD | 171.5 | 157.5 | (14.0) | |||
Total Treasury closed the year at $157.5M, down from $171.5M in 2024. The change was driven mainly by a reduction in the USD value of the stETH treasury position, not by structural operating deficits.
Basis of Presentation and Accounting Policies
Disclaimer
The financial information included in this report was not prepared in accordance with any major GAAP.
Accounting Policy
The financial report is prepared on an accrual basis. Rewards and expenses are recognized in the period in which they are economically earned or incurred, rather than when tokens are transferred on-chain. To ensure comparability, 2024 figures have been restated for material accrual items.
The primary changes include:
- application of period cut-off adjustments for 2025Y only (cut-off adjustments were not applied to 2024 figures as the estimated impact of such adjustments is not considered material).
- accrual recognition of TRP expenses both for 2024 and 2025 due to their significance and for comparability purposes.
Recognition of TRP expenses on an accrual basis means that the monthly expense is calculated based on (i) the amount of tokens vested during the reporting period and (ii) the 30-day average LDO/USD market price used for valuation. TRP compensation is recognized linearly over the requisite service period regardless of cliff structures.
LDO tokens are recognized when expensed. Unallocated LDO tokens held by DAO are excluded from the reported Total Treasury Position balance.
USD Conversion
For accounting purposes, the USD value of transactions and rewards is calculated using the token price recorded at the end of the day when the transaction occurred. Token balances are valued in USD using the end-of-day closing price on the reporting date.
Explanation of Key Financial Items
Gross Revenue represents the protocol’s share of Ethereum staking rewards generated by Lido validators after distribution to stETH holders. These rewards are further allocated to node operator rewards, deposit referral incentives, and node operator rebates. Node operators’ rebates represent adjustments that increase the effective reward share for certain node operators, reflecting differences between the base node operator fee and higher reward levels applicable to specific operator types.
Other Revenue includes additional revenue streams outside the Lido protocol fee. These primarily consist of Treasury Management rewards, generated from treasury-held assets, as well as early-stage rewards from new protocol products, such as Lido Earn.
Operating Expenses represent the grants the DAO provides to develop, maintain, and operate the Lido protocol. These include research and development (protocol upgrades, engineering, monitoring, and validator tooling), general and administrative costs (legal, finance, DAO operations, and shared infrastructure), marketing and communications, and security audits and infrastructure services.
Liquidity Rewards represent expenses aimed at strategically boosting liquidity in crucial stETH applications, supporting potential integrations that can strengthen the stETH ecosystem, and implementing temporary liquidity measures with clearly defined objectives.
5. Conclusion & 2026 Direction
With Lido DAO’s core mission largely complete (see Lido on Ethereum Scorecard), the protocol now stands as a secure, decentralized, and scalable staking platform. The foundational engineering phase focused on validator decentralization, staking infrastructure, and governance safeguards, achieving structural maturity.
2025 marked the completion of that phase, with the permissionless CSM and Dual Governance in place. The protocol operates at scale, with diversified validator participation, embedded governance protections, and structured financial oversight.
Staking remains a durable and predictable source of rewards. The current growth vector is Lido’s product portfolio expansion, including modular staking infrastructure (stVaults), APR-maxis oriented products such as Lido Earn, and institutional staking distribution channels.
This material is for informational purposes only and is not investment, legal, business, financial, or tax advice.
No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to its accuracy, completeness, or timeliness. No information in this material should be interpreted as a recommendation or relied upon as a guarantee of any specific outcome. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Any opinions or forward-looking statements reflect the current judgment of the Foundations as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. Parties should conduct their own independent evaluation before making any decisions.
