Over the past year, a group of Lido contributors has worked on a new architectural direction for the protocol. This direction is centered around stVaults, isolated staking positions that decouple how ETH is staked (e.g. node operator, fees, risk preferences, sidecars) from the liquidity layer.
Liquidity has always been one of Lido’s core strengths, and the main design challenge has been to give stakers highly customizable, individualized positions while preserving the same liquidity benefits offered by stETH. Before drafting this whitepaper, we conducted joint research with MixBytes to explore how other protocols manage individualized staking, and how those designs could be meaningfully improved.
We expect stVaults to become a highly composable building block that serves as a foundation for creating strategies, protocols, and institutional staking products. We invite contributors from other protocols, ecosystem builders, and staking researchers to engage with the RFC, provide feedback, and help refine the final design. The core architecture is in place, though we remain open to challenges on the details and improvements where they make sense.
The draft covers a broad design surface, and we anticipate continuing the refinement process over the coming weeks, with the goal of finalizing the whitepaper by mid-summer. For suggestions regarding wording, clarity, or structure, you’re welcome to leave comments and suggestions directly in the HackMD document. For more substantive or directional questions, please use this forum thread so the discussion stays visible and shared.
We’re particularly looking for feedback on the stVault design and risk management model, especially on how to balance the stETH’s risk profile and redeemability with staker-driven node operator selection. This is one of the most critical areas of the design, and your input would be highly valuable.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to the research, conversations, and writing that led to this draft. We genuinely look forward to your feedback and questions—they matter a lot to us at this stage.
Whitepaper: Lido V3 Whitepaper — Draft for RFC - HackMD
