The TVL (Total Value Locked) of liquid staking protocols has surpassed the $14B mark, making liquid staking the second largest DeFi sector.
Meanwhile, DeFi lending platforms now hold the third-highest TVL of $13.7B. Decentralized exchanges, comprising 714 protocols, have retained their positions as the largest crypto sector thanks to a combined TVL of $19.35B.
As per DefiLlama’s statistics, 71 staking platforms have contributed to the $14.12B sum. At present, Lido Finance holds a significant share of the liquid staking TVL with over $9.34B worth of staked tokens on its platform.
Lido also recorded the highest daily stake inflow of over 150K Ethereum (ETH) tokens on Saturday. Blockchain analysts reported that Justin Sun, founder of TRON (TRX), had deposited $240M worth of ETH assets in four transactions.
The increase in liquid staking TVL can be attributed to Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade that is due in March. Matrixport’s head of research and strategy, Markus Thielen, predicted that the interest in liquid staking will grow in the coming months. His views were in line with a recent report from Binance’s Research department that stated,
“It could be argued that many groups of individuals had been waiting for Shanghai to stake their ETH, as withdrawals will remove the liquidity risk and uncertainty of an previously undefined lock-up period.”