Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik divested his last Lido (LDO)
An early investor in LidoDAO, Alex Svanevik, divested the last LDO tokens from his wallet. Other whales are transacting the token, while ETH staking is facing challenges due to lower L1 fees.
Alex Svanevik moved on from his role as an early Lido (LDO) supporter, after divesting the last 3M tokens. The recent transaction follows other whales in rearranging their portfolios.
The CEO of the research platform Nansen cleared the last Lido (LDO) tokens from his wallet. Alexander Svanevik deposited 3M LDO valued at $2.89M to Coinbase.
The known wallet received deposits of LDO in the past three years, building up the share through early investments and additional small-scale buying. Svanevik held through the peak of liquid staking, then started to divest in Q2, 2024.
The recent movement of LDO is the biggest outflow for the wallet so far. Some of the LDO in Svanevik’s wallet came from the initial distribution as a member of the original Lido DAO.
LDO activity also got a boost from several whale wallets. Coinbase Prime posted high-frequency transactions to two millionnaire whale wallets. Jump Trading, another crypto asset manager, was participating in high-frequency transactions between Gate.IO and Bybit, along with other high-value wallets.
The activity follows two previous episodes of whale transactions since September 2, with the potential for buying interest renewing as LDO prices correct.
LDO sank to $0.95 after the latest market slide, also reflecting the weakness of Ethereum (ETH). LDO also faced $152K in longs liquidated, with just $1.1K in short liquidations. The asset is considered risky until further liquidations are cleared.
The latest selling from large wallets also pushed ETH to $2,361.39. The token is also facing pressure from hacker wallets, which are already starting to mix their haul from WazirX and Penpie, for a total of 17,800 ETH.
Metalpha moves ETH from staking
The latest movement of LDO from Svanevik’s wallet follows an earlier transaction that cuts into the positions of Lido. Metalpha, a recently launched crypto finance firm for hedging and asset management, removed ETH from its staking position.
Metalpha removed some of its ETH staking positions, by transferring 5,994 ETH out of the smart contract and into Binance. The transaction looked like it was intended for a sale, and was followed by a 2.3% price slide for ETH.
Metalpha, rebranded from Dragon Victory International Limited, emerged in Hong Kong and has been linked to mining and hardware company Bitmain.
Lido retains high liquidity and stETH supply
LidoDAO is the most liquid DeFi protocol so far, still locking in more than $23B in value. Lido peaked at more than $40B in total value locked in March, but has suffered from the overall bearish attitude to ETH.
The un-staking from Lido DAO continues, with another big pending transaction for 6,997 ETH as of September 6. A previous transaction for 3,157 ETH already waited for 32 hours. The longest withdrawal time to un-stake ETH from Lido DAO reached 34 hours. Unstaking through the protocol takes longer, and some may choose to go through DEX for a small price loss.
Additionally, the Ethereum Foundation moved another 1,000 ETH, most probably for decentralized swapping into DAI.
A total of 15,973 stETH is in the withdrawal queue as of September 6. The amount is still small compared to the total supply of more than 9M stETH. Of that supply, 92,520 stETH is held in several liquidity pools in the Ethereum ecosystem. Another 898,024 stETH is held in the EigenLayer ecosystem, looking for additional liquidity.
One of the reasons for slower liquid staking is the fact that the Ethereum network has slowed down its fee production. Smaller base fees and priority fees are cramping the earnings of validators, while also slowing down demand for staking ETH.
The Ethereum network now has to resolve the matter of tapping the earnings of L2 protocols in some way. For now, L2 can use the Ethereum net cheaply or with low fees, retaining most of their protocol earnings. That model may change, if L2 draw in enough traffic to require more Ethereum block space.
ETH sentiment remains heavily bearish, as the token faces both low interest from ETF buyers and low confidence in the main blockchain as a source of fees. The network’s inflation inched up slightly lower after increased token burns, though still producing more than 16K new ETH weekly. With low enthusiasm, all withdrawals and divestments in the Ethereum ecosystem serve to accelerate the bearish sentiment.
Cryptopolitan reporting by Hristina Vasileva
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