Lido DAO proposes $20 million one-off LDO buyback as token hovers near all-time low
Lido DAO proposes spending up to 10,000 stETH, worth about $20 million, to buy back its LDO token due to a significant price dislocation.Summary
Lido DAO, Ethereum's largest liquid staking protocol, is considering a significant one-off buyback of its governance token, LDO, by utilizing up to 10,000 stETH from its treasury, valued at approximately $20 million at current Ether prices.
The proposal highlights that the LDO-to-ETH ratio is at a 70% discount compared to the previous two years, with the token recently hitting an all-time low near $0.27. The DAO views this as a major dislocation between LDO's market price and its underlying protocol fundamentals, noting that the buyback could absorb about 8% of the circulating supply.
This action is distinct from Lido's separate NEST automated buyback proposal, which is designed to activate only under specific, higher revenue and ETH price conditions. The one-off buyback allows the DAO to act faster and at double the scale. The execution would involve deploying stETH in batches across decentralized exchanges like CoW Swap and Uniswap, as well as centralized exchanges like Binance and OKX, to manage thin on-chain liquidity.
(Source：The Block)