Lido Proposes New Staking Route with Higher Bond Requirements

Lido, a leading Ethereum staking platform, has proposed a new staking route for larger validators, which would require a significantly higher entry bond than its existing default route. According to the platform's deployment plan, the new route, called Community Staking Module 0x02, would support compounding validators with up to 2,048 $ETH of effective stake, compared to 32 $ETH for existing-route validators.

The proposed bond for the new route is 32 $ETH for the first key and 30 $ETH for each additional key, which is a substantial increase from the 2.4 $ETH and 1.3 $ETH required for the existing default profile.

However, Lido's operator economics table shows that the new route can reach parity with the existing default key at around 747 $ETH, measured as operator fees per $ETH bonded. This means that operators who can reach the maximum balance of 2,048 $ETH may be able to achieve higher returns on their investment.

But the proposed configuration also introduces a new set of rules for funding and penalties, which could impact the net result for operators. The new route has a 16-position top-up queue, and operators must first receive their initial 32 $ETH through the deposit queue before entering a separate first-in, first-out queue for further funding.