Lido vs Maple

Lido is the largest liquid‑staking protocol, minting stETH and other LSTs that track underlying validator balances 1:1 minus a 10 % reward fee. Its dual‑dao governance splits responsibility between the Lido DAO and the protocol’s Node Operator Registry, reducing centralisation risk. By May 2025 over 9 million ETH—roughly 30 % of staked supply—was custodied under Lido smart contracts.

Maple Finance is an on‑chain capital‑markets platform that enables under‑collateralised loans to trading firms and Web3 businesses via permissioned lending pools. Pool delegates perform credit assessment and share in origination fees, while lenders earn a fixed yield plus default protection through an insurance ‘cover’ pool. As of 2025 Maple has originated over $2.3 billion across both Ethereum and Solana deployments.