Lido's Curated Module v2 Exposes Ethereum's Staking Concentration

Lido's proposed Curated Module v2 has sparked renewed scrutiny of Ethereum's staking concentration. According to Dana Love, PhD, a relatively small group of approved operators manages an enormous share of staked ETH.

The arrangement is characterized as a permissioned membership system rather than an open staking market, with 34 curated node operators controlling roughly 8 million ETH (valued at about $16.5 billion) through Lido.

Love argues that the number of validators has obscured this more consequential fact: Ethereum's validator count has declined from around 880,000 to roughly 628,000 after consolidation, while the same 34 operators are expected to remain.

The proposed bond framework for Curated Module v2 would require operators to post ETH collateral, with a first validator key requiring an 11 ETH bond and subsequent keys having lower incremental requirements. This model is compared to Lido's Community Staking Module, where smaller operators receive more favorable capital treatment relative to the stake they manage.