Currently LDO is only listed on Decentralized Exchanges like SushiSwap and a few obscure Centralized Exchanges where there are not a lot of trading volumes.
This brings about about some negative externalities.
Liquidity for LDO on Sushi (highest volume exchange for LDO) is so bad that a sell order of 5000 LDO can bring the price down 2%. It is a paradise for whales and manipulation.
With Lido becoming one of the more legitimate projects in the space with TVL levels that can compete with a lot of big DeFi protocols, this feels pretty bad.
Adding to that, that only being listed on Ethereum based DEX’s excludes a lot of people to participate in Lido and LDO. Lido becomes a project for the wealthy, because people are not able to buy in to the project. Community and values are more often than not created when people are incentivized to learn about a project.
As we have seen time and time again, the most valuable marketing strategy for any project in the space is the token price going up (e.g. Solana or vapor Cardano). This results in attention increase and gives people an incentive to participate in the project, which for Lido can result in increased staking levels on Lido.
If there is no incentive from the DAO to list LDO at Centralised Exchanges, it will never happen, because almost all CEX’s compete directly with Lido for staked assets.
Let’s become a legitimate player, not only for the on-chain natives.
Proposal: Start with the process of budgetting for CEX listings from the Treasury for Growth & Marketing purposes. Go after people that otherwise will definitely stake with Centralized Custodians and create a better and more mature LDO market that dampens manipulation via CEX/DEX arbitrage.
Feedback welcome.