ETH price hits $3K as major crypto fund adds over $110M Ethereum to Lido's staking pool
Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) rose above $3,000 on March 22 as fresh data suggests Three Arrows Capital staked at least $110 million worth of ETH into Lido's liquidity pools.
The Singapore-based hedge fund manager provided liquidity worth 36,401 ETH to Lido's "Curve stETH pool" using a third-party Ether wallet, data from Etherscan shows. As a result, it became eligible to receive at least 36,401 stacked Ether (stETH) tokens from Lido: To ensure low slippage when un-staking those tokens for real ETH plus staking reward.
Almost an hour later, another Ether address, marked with the word "fund," sent 6,993 ETH (worth $21.12 million) to the Curve stETH pool, hinting that Three Arrows Capital was adding more liquidity to the Lido's coffers. If correct, the fund may have already staked more than $130 million worth of Ether on March 22.
The Three Arrows Capital's massive Ether inflow into Lido staking pools came ahead of the launch of Ethereum's new validation system in summer 2022.
Ethereum will switch its network protocol from energy-intensive proof-of-work to proof-of-stake, which lets users validate transactions and add blocks to the Ethereum blockchain by staking 32 ETH or its multiples for at least one year to earn annual yields.
But only 8% of the current ETH supply has been staked into ETH 2.0 contracts since its introduction in December 2020, underscoring that average Ether users are reluctant to lock 32 ETH — about $100,000 at today's price — for a year. That has created opportunities for liquidity mining providers like Lido.
Notably, Lido allows users to lock any amount of Ether to participate in running the ETH 2.0 chain without lock-ups. As a result, it now represents more than 80% of the Ethereum liquid mining
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