Lido Consolidates $16.5 Billion in Staked Ether, Reducing Validator Count by Third
Lido Finance has initiated its largest structural upgrade since 2023, starting to consolidate over $16.5 billion worth of staked Ether into a redesigned validator framework.
The migration to Curated Module v2 (CMv2) is expected to reduce the total number of Ethereum validators by approximately one-third, streamlining consensus-layer operations without directly altering transaction fees for end users.
Lido has confirmed that its 34 existing curated node operators will transition to the new module, which requires them to post locked ETH bonds as financial collateral for the first time in Lido's five-year history.
This introduces a system of economic accountability to an earlier trust-based model, where operators were selected based on reputation and historical reliability.