Lido Consolidates $16 Billion Worth of Staked ETH Amid Protocol Upgrade

Lido, a major Ethereum staking project, is consolidating around one-fifth of all staked ETH onto larger validators as part of its protocol upgrade.

This represents more than 8 million ETH, worth approximately $16 billion, and will significantly reduce Ethereum's total validator count by about one-third, 'easing load on the network', according to Lido.

The move is made possible by the introduction of Curated Module v2 (CMv2), which requires curated professional operators to post their own ETH as collateral to cover losses from slashing or other operational failures.