Lido buyback is set for 2026 – Are the $10M targets ‘relatively low’?

Key Takeaways 

Why has Lido jumped on buyback trend? 

To reduce the circulating supply and on-chain liquidity for the token and treasury. 

How did the market react? 

The LDO price dropped, but the accumulation trend signaled long-term bullish conviction. 

Ethereum [ETH]-based staking platform, Lido [LDO], has followed Uniswap’s [UNI] steps and proposed a LDO buyback program. 

According to the proposal, the program will be funded by staking revenue. But under certain conditions: the ETH price must be above $3k, revenue must exceed $40 million, and the annual buyback will be capped at $10 million. 

The plan follows an anti-cyclical approach, placing more bids in bull markets and fewer during downturns.

Per the plan, the overall price impact is expected to be about 2% or less, while enhancing liquidity and reducing supply.  

The voting and subsequent execution of the buyback are expected in Q1 2026. This is a broader trend that has been aggressively adopted by Hyperliquid [HYPE], Pump.fun [PUMP], and now UNI. 

Source: Tokenomist

Impact on LDO markets

LDO’s price fell 9% following the announcement, tracking a wider market downturn. Despite this, on-chain data showed steady long-term accumulation.

Notably, as LDO dropped from $1.5 to below $1 in the past few months, the Supply outside of Exchanges (accumulated LDO) increased by 37 million tokens to 865 million. 

Source: Santiment

In other words, long-term investors appeared bullish on the token’s outlook in the medium term. 

On the traders’ side, Binance’s top traders had increased long positions by 2% to 66% after the update. Collectively, it underscored that shared positive outlook for the token. 

Lido platform traction

Lido launched in 2020, enabling users to stake ETH, earn rewards, and use stETH for DeFi liquidity.

At its peak, it controlled over 30% of staked ETH, raising concerns and triggering an aggressive push for more decentralization and competition. 

As of the time of writing, the platform controlled 23% of the liquid staking market share and generated $94 million in annualized revenue. Since its launch, the platform has generated a cumulative revenue of $284 million.  

Source: DeFiLlama

Based on the $10 million annual buyback cap, DeFi analyst DeFi Ignas estimated $4 million worth of LDO would be repurchased annually. That is roughly $333,000 monthly.

However, critics deemed the targets as relatively low compared to other players, who are eyeing +$30 million in monthly token buys.