## LDO recap: Why we accumulated at the 0.22–0.25 lows, but stopped chasing once it rose to 0.37

As of 14:49 on July 16, LDO’s spot price is 0.3716 USDT. Looking back at the 0.22–0.25 dip-buy zone provided on June 30: using the upper end of the range, the staged upside was 48.64%; using the lower end, it was 68.91%; using a mid-cost of 0.235, it was 58.13%. On the morning of July 1, the LDO price returned to 0.2404. From this publicly visible timestamp, the gain was 54.58%.

These figures are eye-catching, but I don’t want to write the recap as a single “successful call.” It’s only a theoretical calculation based on the disclosed range, and it does not represent anyone’s actual trading profits. What is truly worth revisiting is why we paid attention to LDO at the time—and why, after it started rising, we didn’t keep raising the buy-in price.

On June 30, the first thing we did with LDO was not to turn bullish, but to conduct a risk review. At that time, Lido’s protocol revenue over the prior 30 days was about 2.0954 million US dollars, down 49.18% from the previous 30 days. Lido is still the leading liquid staking protocol for Ethereum, but the revenue decline triggered the P1 risk standard. The project hadn’t become bad enough to be moved out of the observation range, but it also couldn’t justify a high valuation based solely on the two words “a leader.”

So our judgment that day was restrained: 0.22–0.25 was a reasonable dip-buy zone, and before the “revenue yellow light” was cleared, we couldn’t take a heavy position. At 09:45 on June 30, LDO’s prevailing price was 0.2508, just slightly above the upper end of the range, and we didn’t chase. After the price returned to 0.2404 on July 1, the research plan allowed at most a 20% probing position.

The July 4 deep update continued to keep this entry zone and kept asking the most critical question about LDO: a strong Lido protocol doesn’t necessarily mean the LDO token is strong. The protocol has revenue, TVL, and a key position in its track, but token holders still lack a clear and stable value-capture mechanism. For the price recovery to turn into a fundamental re-pricing, we needed to see revenue improvement, progress on buybacks, or NEST truly converting protocol surplus into demand for LDO.

After the price started rising, our project tracking also didn’t focus only on positives. On July 6, Lido’s TVL over the prior 30 days rose by about 14.93%, yet protocol revenue fell by about 44.01%; when we rechecked on July 10, the revenue side still looked weak. A TVL rebound suggests resilience in staking inflows, but if revenue doesn’t come back in sync, it indicates that the valuation feedback loop isn’t solid yet. Based on this divergence, we didn’t raise the entry zone and didn’t remove the revenue yellow light.

On July 13, the parameters for the 3rd batch of buybacks were released in a single update: an upper limit of 1,000 stETH; an LDO/ETH price cap of 0.000151; and the latest execution time was August 24. The easiest misreading here is to treat “parameters announced” as “buybacks already completed.” At that time, funds had not yet been allocated, and the price cap also implies this was not unconditional support. Even if the purchase is completed, LDO would return to DAO control—not be destroyed.

A more important path is NEST. Under the old plan, part of the surplus would be used to purchase LDO, and then paired with wstETH to form DAO-owned liquidity. Under the LP model at the time, even if the annual budget reached the 10,000,000 US dollars upper limit, only about half would directly buy LDO. Therefore, we treated 0.30–0.38 as the probability-weighted reasonable price in the proposal stage, without fully pricing in the best outcome that hadn’t been implemented yet.

The latest development before this write-up is that the Lido working group plans to change NEST’s initial launch from the old structure to a treasury model. If the subsequent on-chain voting passes, the executable budget would be used to buy all LDO first, and then transfer into the DAO treasury. In theory, the direct buy upper limit would increase from about 5,000,000 US dollars under the old model to 10,000,000 US dollars.

This is a substantial positive change, but it’s still not confirmed buy-side demand. Final audit, on-chain voting, fund disbursement, and actual trades have not been completed. The purchased LDO would enter the DAO treasury, and it would still not be destroyed or distributed as cash dividends. Therefore, the old model needs to be re-calculated—but until execution evidence appears, we do not increase the position-size upper limit.

At 0.3716, the price is already close to the upper end of the previously reasonable range. The new NEST proposal is worth continuing to track, but it’s not enough to justify chasing. Provide price boundaries at low levels; limit position size when risks appear; update the plan promptly after project changes; and stop chasing once the price enters a reasonable valuation range—this is the research logic that this LDO recap is truly trying to convey.

One case can’t prove that every future judgment will be correct, but it leaves behind at least a research path that can be revisited. What we hope to provide is not just a “bullish stance,” but a complete set of research foundations—from in-depth research, valuation segmentation, and risk warnings, to project tracking and dynamic recap.

The above is only for project research and stage recap, and does not constitute investment advice or a promise of returns.