Lido Token Spikes, Are Whales Actively Accumulating LDO?

Following Ethereum whale interest in the Lido Finance token, LDO has gained massive momentum over the past week, up by 20%. Whalestats recently reported LDO was one of the most used smart contract tokens among the top 5,000 ETH investors.  

While the reason for the token adoption may be quite glaring, its recent spike has begged questions from individuals wondering if whales are actively accumulating the Lido Finance token.

According to on-chain data, whales are interested in LDO. LookOnChain reported earlier today some investors received a massive amount of LDO tokens. As on-chain data reveals, 3.5 million tokens were received by an investor, and almost half a million were sold on the market at an average selling price of $1.37.

9 hours ago, when the price of $LDO rose from $1.24 to $1.42, an $LDO investor received 3.5M $LDO ($4.8M) and sold 500,000 $LDO ($685,000) out, with an average selling price of ~$1.37.https://t.co/FNpLOXv8Ad pic.twitter.com/23vrf7KBOb

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) January 5, 2023

Though the sum was large enough to move the LDO market, given the token is not the most liquid asset, LDO survived the massive sell-off, remaining at a solid price.  

Related Reading: Lido DAO Shows Strength To Breakout; Will The Downtrend Line Be Invalidated?

Aside from that, the rapid increase in trading volume is also a point worth noting on the accumulation of the liquid staking token. LDO trading volume has gone from $9.3 million at the beginning of this year to $85 million at present. 

Just a few days ago, Lido Finance TVL (total value locked) overtook Maker DAO emerging as the largest DeFi protocol in terms of total value locked. The Liquid staking protocol’s TVL went from a ranging $5 billion to $5.99 billion. Alongside the protocol TVL increase, Lido’s LDO token also surged amid its TVL rise up by almost 20% in the past week.

The reason behind the rapid increase in the momentum of Lido is the Ethereum Merge, which triggered the popularity of liquid staking protocols such as Lido Finance. Following the merge, the total ETH stake in Lido increased 10% from 4.43 million ETH on September 15, 2022, the date of the merge, to 4.9 million ETH today.

As of now, the momentum on LDO still seems to be solid, sitting at a trading price of $1.39 with a trading volume of $83 million. Regardless, LDO is still down from its historical all-time high of $11. 

Overall, LDO is not the only token in the market gaining upward momentum. Major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have also gained a few percent to the upside. 

As of the time of writing, Bitcoin is currently trading at $16,819, with a 24-hour trading volume of $15 billion. In contrast, Ethereum currently trades for $1,251, up by 0.25%, with a trading volume of $4.9 billion in the past 24 hours. 

Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView