Lido DAO (LDO) Price: Governance Token Down 96% as DAO Proposes $20M Buyback

TLDR

• Lido DAO has proposed a one-off $20 million buyback of its LDO governance token using 10,000 stETH from its treasury.
• LDO is trading at $0.30, down 95.9% from its all-time high of $7.30 set in August 2021.
• The LDO/ETH ratio is roughly 63% below its two-year median, which the DAO calls a historic dislocation.
• The buyback would be executed in batches of 1,000 stETH, each requiring separate tokenholder approval.
• Lido’s 2025 revenue fell 23% to $40.5 million, though the protocol still holds the largest share of staked Ether at 23.2%.

Lido DAO has put forward a proposal to buy back $20 million worth of its own governance token, LDO. The plan was submitted on Friday and is now open to a tokenholder vote.

The proposal asks for permission to use 10,000 stETH — currently worth around $20 million — from the DAO’s treasury to purchase LDO on the open market.

The DAO says LDO is trading at one of its most extreme discounts to Ether in the token’s history. The LDO/ETH ratio currently sits at 0.00016, roughly 63% below its two-year median.

LDO is priced at $0.30 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko. That puts it 95.9% below its all-time high of $7.30, which was reached in August 2021.

The token’s market cap stands at around $255 million, making it the 141st largest crypto asset by market value.

“That dislocation is not justified by a proportional deterioration in protocol performance,” Lido DAO said in the proposal.

How the Buyback Would Work

The buyback would not happen all at once. The DAO plans to execute it in smaller batches of 1,000 stETH at a time, up to a total of 10,000 stETH.

Each batch would require separate approval from tokenholders before it could proceed. The DAO also said it would use limit orders or a dollar-cost averaging strategy to reduce the impact of market volatility.

After each tranche is completed, results must be reported before the next batch can begin.

A similar automated buyback mechanism was proposed in November 2024 but was never implemented.

Revenue Fell, But Protocol Holds Market Share

Lido’s 2025 revenue came in at $40.5 million, a 23% drop from the year before. Staking fees, which make up the bulk of revenue, fell 23% to $37.4 million.

The DAO acknowledges the decline but points to other figures it says show underlying strength. Costs improved 13% year over year, and Lido’s take rate — the share of staking rewards the protocol keeps — rose from 5% to 6.11%.

Despite the token’s price decline, Lido still holds the top position in Ethereum’s liquid staking market. According to Dune Analytics, the protocol accounts for 23.2% of all staked Ether.

That dominance has drawn scrutiny in the past over concerns about centralization risks to the Ethereum network.

The proposal now moves to a tokenholder vote, where LDO holders will decide whether to approve the first 1,000 stETH batch.

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