Lido vs WBTC

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.

Wrapped BTC (WBTC) is a Bitcoin‑backed ERC‑20 minted by BitGo under a multi‑sig controlled by merchants and custodians. Each token is 1:1 redeemable for BTC, with reserves published every 24 hours and verifiable on chain. WBTC accounts for more than 70 % of tokenised bitcoin on Ethereum and serves as core collateral for Aave, Maker and Compound.