Lido's share of staked Ethereum has fallen by more than ten percentage points, from 32.5% in May 2022 to 20.7% as of June 2026. Over the same period, though, the ETH staked through Lido more than doubled, from about 4.1M ETH to 8.6M ETH. Lido's share dropped not because ETH left the protocol, but because the whole Ethereum staking market grew far faster than Lido did.
This points to a staking market that is becoming more varied and more mature. Through 2024, the market was retail-driven. ETH holders picked Lido for easy access to staking and for its use across DeFi, and most of them were retail users. After 2025, institutional entry into Ethereum staking picked up in earnest, and by 2026 the growth was led by regulated products like ETFs and ETPs, along with direct staking from institutions such as BitMine and Grayscale.
Institutions care more about asset segregation, compliance, operational control, and clear reporting than about DeFi access or higher yield. So they tend to prefer one of two paths: running their own infrastructure built for their specific regulatory environment and staking directly, or contracting directly with staking providers that specialize in institutional clients. Lido launched stVaults for institutions through Lido V3 on January 30, 2026, but it has not yet absorbed enough of the fast-growing institutional demand.
Comparing competition in Ethereum staking by protocol-level market share can distort what the market actually looks like. The competition here is not one big pool of users that everyone fights over. Demand is split into separate groups, and a different contest plays out within each one.
The entry queue for Ethereum staking now sits above 50 days, and it is still climbing fast. In that setting, watching how the shares held by Lido, exchanges, and institutions each move is itself a good way to read the market. A rising Lido share means retail demand for on-chain use is getting stronger. A rising exchange share signals a growing group of users who want to stake but care little about on-chain DeFi. A rise in direct institutional staking signals that regulated institutional capital is flowing into Ethereum. Staking share is better used to judge which kind of demand is driving the market than to value any single protocol.
