Lido Upgrades Staking Infrastructure to Support Ethereum 0x02 Withdrawals

Lido, the liquid staking protocol for Ethereum, has announced an upgrade to its staking infrastructure. The change is intended to improve validator efficiency while maintaining decentralization.

The upgrade introduces a new component called Curated Module v2, which adds support for Ethereum's 0x02 withdrawal credential format. This enables validators to operate with a larger effective balance of up to 2,048 ETH, reducing the number of independent validator instances needed to steward a given amount of stake.

Lido projects that the migration could reduce Ethereum's validator count from approximately 880,000 to about 628,000, implying a roughly 33% reduction. The protocol emphasizes that users do not need to take action, as the migration will be handled at the protocol level.