Dec 21 2023
2023 was a milestone year for Liquid Collective’s ETH liquid staking protocol. It’s inspiring to look back at all of the progress Liquid Collective has made, from LsETH’s launch in March to over $78M in TVL today.
Not to be overshadowed by the 2023 Year in Review, this month’s update includes exciting launches for the protocol and ecosystem, new collaborations, and updates from across the liquid staking landscape.
Read on for the latest from Liquid Collective. We’ll see you in 2024!
Liquid Collective's Latest
Liquid Collective Year in Review: 2023
Thank you for being a part of the Liquid Collective community during this first year of protocol operations—an exciting year marked by market volatility, significant ETH network milestones, and rapid developments in the staking ecosystem. As we reflect on 2023, this lookback provides an overview of Liquid Collective’s strategic collaborations and initiatives, along with an outlook of trends for the year to come.
Setting the stage for another year of growth and innovation to come in 2024, dive into the 2023 Year in Review here.
Liquid Collective becomes the first liquid staking protocol to introduce service level agreements for baseline Node Operator performance
This month, Liquid Collective announced a landmark development in liquid staking: the introduction of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Node Operator performance. These agreements represent a new era in liquid staking as the decentralized Liquid Collective protocol aligns with the high standards and reliability that enterprises traditionally expect from their technical service providers. Once fully implemented, failure to comply with the SLAs will result in Node Operators reimbursing the Liquid Collective protocol for missed reward opportunities.
Learn more about Liquid Collective’s Node Operator Performance SLAs in our announcement, in Blockworks’ coverage, or in the 0xresearch podcast’s interview with Alluvial CEO & Co-Founder Mara Schmiedt.
“Implementing Node Operator Performance SLAs is a testament to Liquid Collective’s commitment to building a protocol that meets the benchmarks set by professional service providers, heralding a new standard in the liquid staking ecosystem. We’re proud to have supported this effort alongside the ecosystem-leading experts in Liquid Collective’s Node Operator Working Group.”
—Matt Leisinger, CPO & Co-Founder atAlluvial
BitGo launches Qualified Custody for LsETH
BitGo, a leading digital asset trust and security company, has joined Liquid Collective to offer Qualified Custody for LsETH to the company’s diverse user base, which includes institutional investors, financial service providers, and trading firms. BitGo's custody solution stands out for its robust security measures, along with being insured and regulated as a qualified custodian.
“This integration reflects our commitment to support the dynamic DeFi space while maintaining the highest standards of security and regulatory compliance, ensuring our clients have access to the most secure and scalable custody options in the market,” said Chen Fang, COO of BitGo.
Learn more about BitGo’s Qualified Custody support for LsETH in our announcement here, or in BitGo’s post.
Performance methodology for Ethereum staking providers published under Creative Commons license
Liquid Collective's Node Operator Working Group, spearheaded by Rated Labs in collaboration with industry leaders including Alluvial, Coinbase Cloud, Figment, and Staked, published the industry’s first objective, standardized approach for evaluating professional ETH staking providers under a Creative Commons license for public use.
Collective hopes this initiative will enable stakeholders to objectively assess whether staking providers are performing their validator duties optimally, ensuring a robust and transparent staking environment as participation in PoS ecosystems expands. The open performance methodology was also used to set the benchmark targets for Liquid Collective’s Node Operator Performance SLAs.
Learn more about the Ethereum Node Operator Performance Standards in the Github repository, or in our announcement here. To provide feedback on the methodology, please open an Issue in the repository here, or, use this form.
Hypernative & Liquid Collective collaborate to develop industry-leading protocol threat monitoring platform
Liquid Collective and Hypernative, a web3 real-time security prevention platform, announced a collaboration to develop an advanced protocol threat monitoring platform to elevate the security and observability of Liquid Collective's network while addressing staking risks.
The monitoring approach will address various risks, including:
- Smart contract bugs and manipulation attacks
- Private key theft and operational multisig risks
- Malicious governance proposals
- Other customized risks as developed with Liquid Collective, leveraging an extensive library of self-defined monitoring templates including general threat intelligence and staking risks
Learn more about the collaboration in our announcement.
Events
In case you missed it: Developing Node Operator Performance Standards
Liquid Collective hosted an expert panel to discuss developing the first open Ethereum Node Operator Performance Methodology along with how Liquid Collective is using the methodology to implement Node Operator Performance SLAs.
Watch the recording here to hear the perspectives of Liquid Collective’s Node Operator Working Group, including representatives from Figment, Coinbase Cloud, Rated, and Alluvial, on developing the standards an their impact for the ecosystem.
Upcoming Conferences: To connect with the teams supporting Liquid Collective at an upcoming conference, contact us.
- ETHDenver: Feb 23 - March 3, Denver Colorado
- Digital Asset Summit: March 18-20, London United Kingdom
- Token2049: April 18-19, Dubai UAE
- SALT iConnections: May 16-18, New York New York
- Consensus 2024: May 29-June 1, Austin Texas
News from the Collective & Ecosystem Updates
- Twinstake published an analysis on the impact of compounding ETH staking rewards, finding that doing so can increase staking rewards by up to 12 bps. Read the report here.
- Proof of Stake Alliance (POSA) Founder Evan Weiss shared his thoughts on the reception of the POSA Staking Industry principles in discussions with lawmakers in the US and Canada. Read the thread here.
- ETH Wave published a comprehensive breakdown of the ETH token distribution across the ecosystem. View it here.
- A41 published a liquid staking panel video from their Korean Blockchain Week 2023 All for Staking event, featuring speakers from Mantle, Lido, Stader, and Alluvial. Watch it here.
- POSA submitted a comment to Treasury & the IRS on the proposed ‘broker’ reporting rule, focusing on the impact to staking and the PoS ecosystem. Read the thread here.
- In early December the ETH staking rate rose back above the US 10-year treasury yield rate. View the analysis from VanEck’s Matthew Sigel here.
- EigenLayer is adding support for 6 new LSTs as restaking assets on the protocol in December, with support for Liquid Collective and other LSTs expected in early 2024. Read the announcement here.
- Obol launched its mainnet beta, opening access to run distributed validators on Ethereum mainnet. View the announcement here.
- Figment has expanded its multi-region support for stakers, to support robust risk mitigation and regulatory compliance. Read more in the announcement here.
- Rated has launched the Rated Console, a self-serve platform bringing the Rated API out of Beta mode to become accessible to all organizations and developers. Read the announcement here.
- Total Deposited ETH: 36,226.510 ETH +0.12%
- Total Value Locked: $79,190,658 +6.17%
- LsETH Conversion Rate: 1 LsETH = 1.03519 +0.36%
- Total Reported Validator Count: 1,143 validators +0.52%
All data is accurate as of December 20, 2023. View real-time onchain data here on Dune. Percentage changes are from the November 10, 2023 edition of By The Numbers.