Lido Finance rose 20% last week ahead of the Ethereum merger

In the last week, holders of Lido Finance’s native token, LDO, have seen their holdings climb by more than 20%.

According to CoinMarketCap, LDO has risen from roughly $1.61 to $1.93 today, representing a total gain of 20.5% since last Monday. Trading volumes for the cryptocurrency have also increased by around 19% in the last 24 hours.

Binance’s stablecoin BUSD, Tether’s USDT, and Bitcoin have been the most popular trading pairs. The majority of trading takes place on Binance, FTX, Gate.io, and KuCoin.

However, the price has declined by about 0.25% in the last 24 hours. LDO has dropped 89.43% since its all-time high of $18.62 in November 2021.

Lido Finance is a well-known “liquid” betting service. To earn an attractive dividend on their assets, users can deposit tokens such as Ethereum, Polygon, Polkadot, and other proof-of-stake (PoS) tokens utilizing the protocol.

Users receive a staked version of their assets in exchange for their deposit; for example, depositing Ethereum gives you “staked Ethereum,” or stETH. This deposit token can then be used elsewhere in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space to earn a higher yield.

The LDO coin is a governance token, like many DeFi tokens. It allows holders to vote on and propose protocol changes. After the original Terra protocol burned to the ground in May, LDO holders wielded enormous power in deciding whether the platform should host the forked Terra system.