Lido Finance's community has put forward a significant treasury allocation plan: authorizing its Growth Committee to use up to 10,000 stETH from the DAO treasury to actively buy the governance token LDO at current depressed prices. The proposal argues that the LDO/ETH exchange rate has fallen to approximately 0.00016, a 63% discount from the two-year median of 0.00043, describing the situation as a “severe market dislocation” not justified by the protocol's underlying health.
LDO/ETH at 63% Discount: Costs Down, Take Rate Up
The proposal highlights that Lido's fundamentals have actually improved: while net protocol rewards dipped about 20%, operating costs fell 13% year-over-year, and the take rate rose from 5% to 6.11%. Lido remains the top liquid staking protocol by total value locked (TVL) with a robust node operator network.
DCA Batches of 1,000 stETH, 3% Slippage Tolerance
To minimize market impact, the Growth Committee will use limit orders and a dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy. Each withdrawal batch is capped at 1,000 stETH, with a maximum slippage tolerance of 3%. The proposal permits transferring funds to centralized exchanges like Binance, OKX, and Bybit, or using existing market-making partners to access deeper liquidity.
Strict Reporting and DAO Oversight
This is a one-time market opportunity action, not a replacement for Lido's ongoing NEST automated buyback program. After each 1,000 stETH batch, the committee must publish a full execution report before requesting the next tranche. All purchased LDO tokens will be returned to the DAO treasury and cannot be used in governance votes during the execution period. Lido DAO retains the right to amend, suspend, or terminate the authorization at any time via governance vote.