Lido Upgrades Ethereum Staking Infrastructure with Validator Consolidation Plan

Lido has introduced an upgrade to its Ethereum staking infrastructure, aiming to improve validator operations and reduce the number of validators on the network.

The Curated Module v2 allows validators to increase their effective balance from 32 ETH to up to 2,048 ETH, supporting higher validator balances and potentially reducing the validator count by about one-third.

This upgrade is designed to improve consensus layer efficiency and does not alter activity on Ethereum's execution layer, meaning transaction processing, gas fees, and user-facing network costs are not expected to change.

Lido has also introduced new accountability measures for node operators participating in its curated staking module, including bond requirements and penalty mechanisms intended to strengthen operator responsibility.