Lido's Buyback Program Activated, But May Remain Idle Until Market Conditions Improve

Lido's highly anticipated buyback program has finally gone live on its mainnet. The NEST (Network Economic Support Token) initiative aims to ensure automatic, dynamic LDO token buybacks based on prevailing market conditions.

The daily limit is set at $50K and annual purchases are capped at $10M. Only 50% of the daily staking revenue exceeding $109K will be directed towards the buyback program, which translates to a $40 million annual revenue baseline.

However, if daily staking revenue remains below this threshold, as it has since April, there will be no buyback. The bought LDO tokens won't be burned but will be owned by the DAO treasury.

Lido's program was previously criticized for being too low compared to other protocols, with annual plans ranging from $35M to $100M. Critics view buybacks as a waste of funds and propose directing them towards ecosystem development instead.