Hi! Given the recent sunset of Lido on Solana, I would like to gather some feedback on sunsetting Lido on Polygon.
Lacklustre Revenue
The current TVL for Lido on Polygon is ~151,000,000 MATIC ($86M). The current fees Lido DAO makes on Polygon per year is
151,000,000 (TVL) * 4.17% (current staking rate) * 5% (DAO fee) = 314,835 MATIC = $166,863
Lido DAO has awarded 450,000 LDO tokens in the past 12 months to Shard Labs as compensation for reaching the 3% staking market goal. Another 150,000 LDO tokens will soon be doled out to Shard Labs to meet the 4% staking market goal. The incentives Lido has spent on Polygon for the past year (from Oct 22 to May 23) were 1,538,500 LDO. I have deliberately discounted the rewards since June 23 (some stETH were distributed) and rewards before Oct 22(north of another 1.5M LDO). With those numbers, this ROI would look even worse.
Over the last 12 months, Lido has spent at least 2,138,000 LDO ($3,421,600) to get to a state of making $166,683 a year. I am not an active DAO member, but simply a bag holder, and this ROI is a sheer waste of LDO/stETH incentives.
Brand Risk
Over the past few months, Lido on Polygon underwent a technical upgrade that seems to have introduced a bug that stopped withdrawals for 25 days. While we were fortunate to have no FUD around this period, this seems to pose a reputational risk to a protocol with $15B in assets.
Expensive Compensation Structure
The yearly revenue that each 1% of staked matic gets to LDO is $41991. The one-time compensation that Shardlabs makes is 150K LDO is $240,000. This is poor ROI, especially under the current market conditions. The Shard Labs team proposed a newer compensation structure under different macroeconomic conditions, which now seems expensive and impractical.
You can find the revised compensation structure here - (Improving the incentive structure for the Lido on Polygon team - #21 by zuzu_eeka).
Polygon Roadmap Uncertainty
Polygon has unveiled its future roadmap that intends the chain to become a restaking layer and a base layer for newer app chains. While this has always been the perception of Polygon, there is increased competition with Eigenlayer building primitives (& seeing great traction) to cater to the same market. There is broader uncertainty with Polygon migrating to a newer token and is undertaking a multi-year long technical architecture overhaul. As a significant LST provider, Lido on Polygon will have to undertake significant changes and bear the costs for Audits. This might also introduce brand risks (see âBrand Riskâ above).
Overall, Polygon has struggled to retain DeFi TVL compared to other L2s. Both Solana and Polygon TVLs follow a strikingly similar pattern since Oct 2022.
Learnings from Competiton (or the lack of)
Barring Stader Labs, another LST provider, there have been no other liquid staking providers on Polygon. This starkly contrasts Ethereum, which is widely assumed to be a growing market, and hence the proliferation of staking services. The competition is dead or unassuming, pointing to a lack of interest in capitalizing on this market on Polygon.
Stader Labs has cut their already conservative incentives on Polygon by 75%, indicating the stasis of a blockchain that Polygon has become.
In short, I propose to sunset Lido on Polygon to become a native ETH liquid staking provider and avoid assuming risks from smaller pockets of TVL.
It is always a pleasure to see community members coming forward with proposals. I really love the insights you gave in terms of funding, but there are a few key points that have to be surfaced for discussion.
The thing that stands out from the proposal itself is âto become a native ETH liquid staking provider.â
The majority of LoX protocols suffered because of DAOâs dedication to Ethereum, and from day one, it was always Ethereum aligned and prioritizing it in day-to-day contributions.
Maybe slightly misplaced but feels right to put some open questions here.
If Lido on Ethereum protocol is to be stuck under 35% of the total stake and there is uncertainty about the future due to the tremendous social pressure and attacks. Why would it be expected from the DAO contributors not to seek other potential deployments that would ensure the ability to use cross-protocol fees to fund development/upgrades, maintenance, and general operation?
Now itâs LoE protocol powering LoX, but it might be the other way around in the future.
This is just some food for thought before we dive deeper into the general proposal. Opinion across the post is my own.
From top-level observations, there is no disputing of the logic itself behind your calculations.
However, mixing milestones and incentives would be unfair as those two are not related.
To address the incentives part:
Itâs probably unclear that historic incentivization in LDO was one of the means to distribute the token across the community while increasing the utilization of stAssets through 3rd party permissionless protocols. It made steps towards more secure protocols, fairer distribution, and a higher number of governance participants. As of September '23, incentives are actually in stETH/wstETH with very strategic approach and clear purpose (forum post)
To address milestones:
Milestones also relate to the compensation structure you mentioned, so Iâm taking the liberty to play a bit with the reply shape to address âmore with lessâ for efficiency.
Completely agree that the structure is expensive and poorly shaped (every LoX proposal to this day). Yet, itâs important to highlight that proposals were created in different markets and with expectations that every Lido branded deployment would have instant success and monstrous capture rate.
The result:
Development costs of Lido on Polygon protocol and team compensations being exclusively handled by ShardLabs.
80:20 split of fees with only 20% going to ShardLabs
Milestones as âsuccessâ rewards and drivers
With this in mind, it would be unfair to penalize ShardLabs for being successful in achieving the milestones and would require finding different types of solutions, which take a lot of time and resources to reach consensus and would drive contributors focus in the wrong direction.
Itâs always unfortunate when an upgrade creates a hard-to-detect issue. It actually passed all the external audits and multiple internal reviews. Would label it as a nightmare for every engineer writing the code. Again while it slightly affected the withdrawals, there was the ability to sell on secondary markets that mitigated the FUD scenario and enabled the contributors to de-bug and fix the issue with no pressure. This should not be a sunset reason in any case for any LoX deployment. No stakers were impacted in the process and service resumed after the code was audited again.
With 2 million USD Immunefi bounty and intensive audits, DAO contributors remain dedicated to security and rigorous QA processes that drastically improved with valuable lessons learned.
Dao contributors constantly communicate with Polygon teams on all levels, collaborating daily. Every blockchain is ever-evolving, so some changes along the way are expected to happen. (It is the same on Ethereum). Future problems are in fact, future problems so there is time to maturity for deeper understanding and research.
Another important clarification is that total value locked is a wrong metric here. It shows the USD value instead of Matic value. Lido on Polygon protocol is near its all time hight in terms of the staked amount of Matic, while USD value decreased due to the market conditions.
Regardless of what competition does, the goal was never to compete but to help decentralize Polygon POS, distribute the stake across multiple operators in the set as evenly as possible, and provide staking rewards to Polygon POS users while maintaining the basic utility of MATIC token. Even though the bear market took its toll on DeFi ecosystems industry-wide, it did not affect the relationship of Polygon, ShardLabs and Lido DAO contributors.
Concluding this response with more food for thought.
If LDO holders would vote to sunset Lido on Polygon protocol it would be a really bad signal to anybody who wants to collaborate with the DAO as trust would be highly impacted. It removes the weight from voted-in proposals and drives to grant-driven collaborations and different type of environment.
P.S.
Iâm hoping to see a proposal in the future that would have long-term sustainability factors, a clearer division of responsibilities, fairer fee distribution and lower dependency on milestones to maintain operational stability.
Hi Marin, thanks for responding. You are right. I am pushing for Lido to be a completely native ETH in light of increased competition.
I understand why you chose to articulate it this way but spending $3M in last 12 months for Lido on Polygon in rewards is not exactly neglecting LoX. You statement could be true for other chains but certainly not for Lido on Polygon.
I agree with you that we should invest in alternative bets. However, that logic could very well be applicable to the recent sunset âLido on Solanaâ. Again, this conversation is not comparing two different chains and TVLs. The question that I would ask ourselves is, at what point is this bet doomed? Right now, the spend for Lido on Polygon based on open data from the last 12 months is yielding 5 cents on every dollar spent. This does feel like a sunk cost unless we can agree to timebox this experiment. The fees earned through Lido on Polygon also ties into treasury management, which is a story for another time.
Maybe open/transparent data from the Liquidity Observation Lab (that I am unable to find) can help confirm the recent spending on Polygon and what the DAOâs take rate is per $ spent if anything has changed in the recent months.
I agree with you. I am not suggesting that we sunset because of this specific bug. It is worth thinking through brand risk for LoE because of bugs on LoP. Let me provide an example to articulate the cross-network risks. If a sizeable hack occurred on LoP, it would result in maybe 5-10% outflows on LoE. For example, Curve lost 25% of itâs TVL despite broadcasting that the situation was under control. Both Curve and Balancer saw their cross-chain TVL going down. Is it worth losing millions of dollars in revenue on LoE because of a technically unrelated hack on LoP? There are no easy answers here.
It is at least worthwhile separating LoP into Liquid Staking on Polygon by Shard Labs so we reduce this risk. The last thing I want tearing down Lido on Ethereum, is the optics of a major hack on a Lido-branded product on other chains.
I believe you may have misunderstood my point. I am talking about the Polygon ecosystemâs DeFi TVL, not LoPâs. My point was that compared to Arbitrum or Base, Polygon has struggled to retain its TVL and has seen an overall drawdown across stablecoins, defi activity, etc.
This is great to hear. I am more focused on âHow long do we fund this experiment when there is no clear visibility for profitability?â
I am broadly hearing from your position that âLoX could come to the rescue of LoE at a future pointâ. Here is my take
We may not see a chain that gives Lido a dominant position as Ethereum does.
Polygon may not be the golden goose at a future point, despite other chains being so.
I donât think we should view it as binary, as you suggest. Shard Labs has renegotiated its compensation structure by redoing a previously voted proposal with a new one. Please find multiple votes and renegotiation here
It is perfectly reasonable to put forth concerns of unprofitability, and unsustainability given the market dynamics have changed.
Summary
I would love to get more feedback from other active DAO participants, specifically on the following}
Should we continue funding Lido on Polygon? Under the current market conditions, the incentive & compensation spends are highly disproportionate to revenues (20:1)
If we continue to fund Lido on Polygon, how can we timebox this initiative so we donât need to continue incurring losses for the foreseeable future? I would propose we renegotiate with Shard Labs on the compensation structure as LDO tokens have 4xâed in price since the last negotiation. How do we create better legal/DAO boundaries between LoE and LoP to preserve the position on LoE?
How do we think about a general framework where LoX (or another name) can be incentivized without sharing the reputational risks, etc? Should renegotiations be baked in every 12 months? Should these LSTs on other chains start as an offshoot non-Lido branded initiative that could be âacquiredâ after they are battle-tested?
But it is already native ETH, Polygon is an Ethereum scaling solution, so it falls in the same bucket.
Polygon POS by design is on Ethereum as well. DeFiLlama also counts Polygon total value locked in a bulk with Lido protocol Ethereum total value locked.
Again itâs important not to mix incentives (rewards committee) which on its self-initiative incentivized LoX where Lido on Polygon got the least amount of incentives and the milestone rewards. And âMilestonesâ. Milestones serve as dedication reward and push towards growth hacking. Also it replaces TRP. The two canât be in the same bucket. Itâs also longer than a year because Lido on Polygon launched in March, 2022.
The major difference here is that Lido on Solana team asked 1.5 million in funding to continue operations or as an alternative offered sunset.
ShardLabs (Lido on Polygon team) does not ask for additional funding to be operational. If there was an ask from ShardLabs in the same manner Iâd advocate for exactly the same result that happened with Lido on Solana. Active spend on Polygon is 0. Fully funded by ShardLabs.
Question is even deeper here. Who should be the one to initiate this kind of proposal? The DAO and its members (youâre part of the DAO as a token holder) or ShardLabs as a development collaborator? DAO wise itâs already voted twice.
No wrong answers here but no right answers either.
One of the reasons that Lido on Solana is sunsetting is the security aspect when there is no ânativeâ team to maintain it anymore. Lido on Polygon is not in such a situation so the risks youâre highlighting are lower than it sounds in the comment.
One could argue no major institution ever would interact with DeFi (or Lido protocol) because it is such a small portion of their revenue, and reputational damage would be substantial.
I find separation a push to create new competitors where in the search for sustainability, releasing Ethereum staking solution would be an obvious next step.
That is true however, industry-wide weâre dealing with users hopping chains to farm airdrops.
The landscape will change in the short term again due to new L2s being launched. (eg. Scroll).
We might not see it happen, indeed. But we also might see it. Once the protocol is deployed and everything is functioning and aligned with deployment collaborators, itâs not a short-term vision but a long-term one.
It currently has 0 funding, and what you reflect constantly is the possibility that ShardLabs might get a âMilestone rewardâ if they maintain 4% for a month.
It might not happen
Love the non-binary approach as it expands the scope to compare it to rest of the Lido on X proposals which other than Lido on Dotsama were much more favorable compared to Polygon one.
It all drives to a badly structured LoX program which everybody agrees was a failure. Development collaborators deploy and fund everything for potential milestone reward. I fail to see why somebody would accept that in general.
In case of new deployments in the future needs a complete overhaul, a framework. Clear rules what if any of the sides breaks the proposal or wantâs out, funding structure, business plan, responsibilities etcâŚ
Market dynamics have changed for sure, but nobody knows when theyâll change again.
Is very easy. Itâs not being âactivelyâ funded by Lido DAO, and given the last vote for Lido on Solana, it shows DAO general sentiment that any extra funding would be difficult.
LDO also reduced in price from the time of the original proposal, so it is unfair to look at the spot price for something like this. Funding and legal do not correlate here. If youâre a lawyer would be good to understand why is it a legal risk.
Also, who should initiate this negotiation, and what would be a fair offer to ShardLabs?
150k LDO that worries you at the current price is very little when you start considering contributor compensations for tech and non-tec and operational costs sit on LoX side with only 20% of fees being shared there.
Who would invest 7 figures to build a protocol and risk this kind of request to burn it all or risk a rule change every 12 months? There is absolutely no risk:reward coverage here.
If there is no simple and efficient structure the program should not exist in the first place.
At this point in time, sunsetting the Lido relationship with Polygon PoS makes little-to-no sense.
Addressing each point directly:
Lackluster Revenue
Lido has halted incentives toward stMATIC growth on Polygon PoS as of June 2023. As such, while prior calculations are interesting, they are a sunk cost and have no bearing on the future profitability of the Lido protocol on Polygon PoS. In fact, sunsetting the relationship after utilizing these incentives to gain meaningful market share among Polygon PoS LSTs is missing the forest for the trees. The hard legwork has already been done, and, with no further incentives getting distributed, at this point the value proposition for Lido moving forward is clear.
Brand Risk
Lido contracts were paused after an issue was discovered with the ratio between stMATIC and MATIC redemptions.
No funds were lost as a result of this pause, and there was no financial incentive for anyone to exploit the issue.
Since then, thereâs been an increased focus with Lido on the contract side, including third party developers and auditors working with the Lido team directly to facilitate the movement toward native-minting contracts on Polygon chains.
Expensive Compensation Structure
The relationship between Shard Labs and Lido is outside of the scope of the Polygon PoS deployment. As such, any conversations around changing compensation structure based on market conditions should happen between the two parties directly, rather than through a proposal based around Polygon PoS and Lido.
Polygon Roadmap Uncertainty
Polygonâs 2.0 roadmap is the culmination of our single-minded historical goal: scaling Ethereum. A number of fantastic projects, like Eigenlayer, are working toward the same end. However, framing it as a binary outcome with either Eigenlayer or Polygon PoS succeeding understates the magnitude and scope of the end goal.
Polygon PoS has done as much as any protocol or application in the space to increase awareness of Ethereum throughout the world. This includes builders outside of the native web3 community that already know Ethereum, such as traditional enterprises. Having the ability to onboard top-of-funnel users and businesses at scale will be a massive lift and one that the Ethereum core protocol is unequipped to handle.
Additionally, as part of the Polygon 2.0 roadmap, the Polygon ecosystem has put increasing focus on the ability for builders to create, get support, and iterate new DeFi and blockchain-native primitives. Long-term, the focus is then connecting those DeFi-native builders with the enterprises and institutions that get onboarded into the space. Given Lidoâs increasing focus around institutional and, later, enterprise onboarding, continuing to work together with the Polygon ecosystem as part of this roadmap makes a lot of sense.
Finally, restaking accrues significantly more token utility than the legacy single-chain model. As a result, weâd hope to see rising participation in network validation, which increases the TAM for liquid staking providers participating in the Polygon ecosystem.
Wrapping Up
While weâre aware that market conditions make protocols increasingly focused on prior spend, the relationship between Lido and Polygon chains is set to be increasingly productive as each project executes on their planned roadmap. The goals that each ecosystem has set for themselves are aligned, and the Polygon Labs team is excited to support the continued growth of LSTs within the Polygon ecosystem.
Lacklustre Revenue - totally agreed Brand Risk - one can agree or disagree, say we ignore this and give the benefit of the doubt / the benefit of the battle-testing that has already happened (even if events like Q3 2023 Curve and Balancer compromises show that no amount of time-on-line can ensure immunity from attacks) Expensive Compensation Structure - agreed Polygon Roadmap Uncertainty - letâs once again ignore this point.
My overall assessment is that it makes a lot of sense for Lido to sunset Polygon.
I am sure other Polkadot / Kusama / Solana representatives were adamant and enthusiastic on keeping Polygon in their chains. As an LDO holder, however, I only look after my protocol. And the rational decision is to sunset Lido on Polygon.
Hi @kentie@Wunder_Bar@Marin@JackMelnick great to see discussion around Lido on Polygon protocol, happy to see that Lido on Polygon protocol has been such an amazing success through this bear market and will continue to be even bigger in the future. We wanted to explain from Shard Labs point of view how do we see the story here and why we believe that Lido on Polygon protocol was one of the best decisions for the Lido DAO and how it will drive much needed diversification of the Lido DAO portfolio due to all the current attacks on Lido on Ethereum and potentials of Polygon ecosystem.
But letâs start with the Why?
From day one there was mutual understanding both on Lido DAO and Shard Labs why are we doing Lido on Polygon protocol. Primary focus was never profit, it was decentralization of the Matic stake as Polygon is one of the main Ethereum scalling solutions. By building the decentralized security scalling layer of Ethereum (which Polygon is) we are also making Ethereum better as we are giving users access to the scalling solution of Ethereum for a fraction of the cost so we we can make Ethereum DeFi more accessible to the world.
Still there were two main issues left, one of those being how do we decentralize the stake that was primarily concentrated on CEXes and second one on how to do it so itâs evenly distributed? Lido on Polygon protocol is a solution community needed to make network more resilient, robust, and not dominated by centralised entities.
What the future holds?
Letâs start with the tech.
We all know that even in Vitalikâs endgame he mentioned that zk is going to be that north star that will ultimate scale Ethereum and that is the technical endgame for the Ethereum itself and all other scalling solutions of Ethereum of which Polygon definitely is part of.
On the Polygon side, Polygon is building value layer for the internet and Lido on Polygon protocol is currently dominant LST solution on the network that is helping decentralize and secure the network. Later on when the time comes there are plans to migrate onto zkEVM to be the dominant layer there and help make Polygon successful not only on the tech stack but also decentralization, because thatâs one of the core things that make blockchain networks what they are.
On the revenue side, currently in the bear market numbers may look slim (as with every bear market) and it takes time for markets to start recovering, as weâve seen with yesterdayâs growth and institutional adoption slowly kicking in.
One of the strong suits of Polygon is itâs institutional adoption and one of the main things that institutions want is staking and itâs derivatives which is also why we are so bullish on LST of Matic and later Poly tokens when zkEVM is fully ready for adoption.
Shard Labs has invested into Lido on Polygon protocol and took all the risk form day 1 much more then we ever got back from all the milestones, but we have never slowed down or been more bullish on what the future holds for Polygon and especially Lido on Polygon protocol as the main decentralization layer for Polygon scalling with imminent mass adoption coming in the years to come and all the upside that comes with it.
What if?
Letâs entartain for a second scenario of shutting down Lido on Polygon protocol, what would happen? (Even if decision made any sense short term, it definitely doesnât make sense long term).
If we shutdown Lido on Polygon protocol today, most of the stake will probably go to competitors like Stader. We know that Stader is competitor of Lido on Ethereum and by this we would feed additional revenue to direct competitors, revenue they will probably feed into incentives for vampiring Lido on Ethereum. This is definitely not a good direction for Lido DAO as a whole.
Endgame for Lido DAO
Lido protocol asset is currently dominant LST on Ethereum, with all the scalling solutions building on top of Ethereum, Lido protocol is in amazing position to be the layer of decentralization for Ethereum mainnet. If Lido protocol stays as is (only as Lido on Ethereum) that is a great success, but value will drive downwards in the future, towards all these new L2s that are scalling Ethereum and Lido protocol needs as a mission driven DAO to decentralize Ethereum and itâs scalling solutions to expand on those L2s as well in the future. Although Lido on X program had a lot of issues in the past it was a visionary move for Lido DAO to scale on future Ethereum scalling solutions (and beyond), but unfortunately due to multiple reasons some of those LoX solutions had to shut down. We in Shard Labs are more bullish then ever and will continue to push Lido on Polygon protocol to new height as weâve survived the worst of the winters together with Lido DAO as a strategic collaborator and are pushing slowly towards the spring and then summer. Despite all the issues Lido protocol (and together with it Lido on X) is one of the best things that happened to in general Ethereum with it visionary contributors and Shard Labs as a part of the DAO will continue to be a contributor and push forward this vision on the new fronts and horizons while all the last centralized forces are not won over with. There are much higher stakes at play here and itâs not for the faint of hearth. Hopefully you can join us in that journey and all of us as contributors can make Lido DAO even better in the future.
Major thing about the sunsets that happened is that they were proposed by the respective teams. DAO can basically break the voted-in decision only once; after that the credibility is lost. The sentiment (if itâs there, which is debatable) to sunset Lido on Polygon cannot be translated unilaterally and straighforwardly in the decision to sunset Lido on Polygon without breaking credibility.
Itâs great to see such debate on Lido on Polygon â you bring some great thoughts to the table @kentie@Marin@Wunder_Bar and others.
I personally am a proponent of Lido being multi-protocol, which can reinforce the brand and provide some resiliency against market movements and volatility.
We do not know what the future holds, and I am still bullish on Polygon = ). Due to brand risk, sunsetting on a chain could prevent Lido from re-establishing on it later, which is concerning. If a chain maintains a strong ecosystem and traction, we might miss the opportunity to relaunch Lido protocol on it during the next bull run, potentially hurting the brand. Itâs notable that a number of ETH stakers are also part of the Polygon ecosystem and may also stake MATIC. Polygon is seamlessly integrated within the Ethereum ecosystem and aligns well with the overall vision, unlike separate chains like Terra Money or Kusama.
I understand that the current bear market makes the math less appealing, but with further growth and hopefully token appreciation, things could turn around. Lido on Polygon has been growing as a protocol when measured in MATIC.
The compensation structure is a point of contention that could be negotiated later between the relevant parties, rather than jumping to the conclusion of sunsetting.
I am not convinced that the timing is right to potentially sunset Lido on Polygon. Great discussion anyway, letâs just be prudent and also take into account brand resilience, future growth potential, possibility for renegotiation and other factors. I believe sunsetting should be a last resort solution once all reasonable paths have been exhausted.
Super interesting discussion and hardly any new points for me to add in the same line. So let me add some perspective as a LIDO validator on Polygon that has been there from the start.
We have been fortunate to be a part of this mission to decentralize Polygon staking from CEXs. All of us tried. Believe us, we tried but nothing moved the needle till a LIDO came along. And it did change status quo by a major margin.
After the foundation, LIDO is now the 5th largest delegator on Polygon. This is no small feat achieved in less than 18 months, especially in a bear market.
I do understand that economics are not adding up right now but that would be a myopic view, wouldnât it? Bear market has taken down most of the giants. It is only the ones who survive will reap the bull market benefits. Now we all can debate that if Polygon is the chain that will grow stronger as the next bull cycle comes along (but how many such bets are there, really?). I am happy to have that debate on a different channel (for context, we are validators only on Polygon and crazy Polygon bulls) but that is speculative and not the point of this discussion.
The simple point is how do we stick around on Polygon (and any other bets) with bleeding as little as possible so that the LDO holders and the ecosystem reap the benefits of the bull run. If there are zero operational costs going in right now, then this seems like a no-brainer to continue, right?
The only concern seems, if the next milestone is reached, there would be additional outflows to Shard Labs. @Edi_ShardLabs, I might be speaking out of turn here but that could be easily worked out where outflows are temporarily suspended but when the conditions improve there is a catchup. Sunset seems like a super strong decision for a shorter term problem (IMO). As Marin said, Shard Labs x LIDO ainât the same relationship as Lido on Solana. The easiest thing I see is pausing fresh delegations till economics or Polygon token price reaches X. This way the bleed is minimized.
With Polygon 2.0 around the corner, it might just a super bad time for LIDO to exit. P2.0 is not just EigenLayer style restaking, it is the whole suite needed to make restaking a success. Fundamentally, at this point, there is just potential upside and hardly any downside.
With 2.0, we as validators, would survive and thrive. Capital, delegated through liquid staking, would also find itâs way back through any liquid staking protocol and there a few new ones coming up on Polygon. But it would be super disappointing to see the pioneer of liquid staking on Polygon leave when it is about to get interesting. There are additional revenue opportunities coming up in 2.0, that validators can share with LIDO and other delegators. Being the 5th largest (and gunning to be the largest) is the position LIDO can leverage and absolutely not worth letting go off.
As for any operational costs that we are missing, if there is anything we can take off LIDOâs plate as validators and contribute more, we would be happy to consider. Marin, Shard Labs and us validators can huddle on this to try and come up with a proposal.
While it made sense to sunset Solana, I agree with the points above outlined for keeping support of Polygon.
I personally do not support expanding âLido-on-Xâ initiatives or investments as it does not align with the GOOSE principles and current objectives. But it would be foolish to sunset Lido on Polygon so soon, it would be the web3 equivalent to selling your new car for gas money.
