- Lido has lost 9% in the ETH staked market as Ether Fi gained 30%.
- Ether Fi token has more upside potential than LDO for investor returns.
Lido [LDO] has lost a significant chunk of Ethereum’s [ETH] staking market share to Ether.Fi, with analysts speculating that a positive SEC stance on DeFi could help revive the staking platform.
In the first half of 2025, Ether Fi’s staked ETH rose 30% while Lido declined 9%, according to Tom Wan, Head of Data at Entropy Advisors.
Source: Dune Analytics
In the past month alone, Ether Fi led with 286.3K staked ETH, while Lido saw 182K ETH outflows.
Surprisingly, this divergence is happening as the overall ETH staking hit a record high, underscoring investor confidence in ETH.
Assessing LDO recovery potential
On the token market performance, Lido could offer a massive upside in case of a hated rally.
Notably, LDO dropped 75% in early 2025, slipping from $2.5 to $0.6. Although it recovered 60% in Q2, only 16% (160 million LDO) of the total supply was in profit.
Source: Glassnode
But about 840 million LDO supply was still in loss. Should they wait to break even or turn a profit, the token’s recovery may extend.
Further evaluation showed that the main on-chain resistance was $1.5-$1.7, according to IntoTheBlock.
Around this zone, about 5.5K addresses bought 167 million LDO, making it a key break-even point for a significant part of the supply.
Source: IntoTheBlock
At press time, LDO traded at $0.96, meaning a resilient recovery to $1.5 could offer a potential 53% gain.
However, such a lift-off could offer relatively better returns on Ether Fi compared LDO. According to the Ether Fi/Lido ratio, Ether Fi outperformed LDO by 130% in May.
The ratio has now formed a bull flag pattern, implying a potential 57% relative Ether Fi gain over LDO.
Source: Ether.Fi/Lido ratio, TradingView
