Lido's LDO Token Surges 30% in Monthly Rally as DAO Approves $20M Buyback Program

Gate News message, April 16 — Lido’s governance token LDO has emerged as a rare bright spot in the DeFi sector, gaining 30% over the past 30 days while major peers declined. LDO is trading at $0.42, up 12% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The catalyst is a $20 million buyback program approved by the Lido DAO. The protocol will spend up to 10,000 stETH (approximately $23 million) to repurchase LDO tokens from the open market through centralized exchanges and market makers in 1,000 stETH batches. At current prices, the full program could retire roughly 8% of LDO’s circulating supply.

Over the same 30-day window, major DeFi competitors significantly underperformed: AAVE fell 7%, Uniswap (UNI) dropped 15%, Curve’s CRV slipped 9%, and Etherfi’s ETHFI shed 16%. MORPHO was the closest to breakeven, losing just 0.5%.

The buyback aligns with a broader strategic shift. In December, the DAO approved a $60 million budget to expand beyond liquid staking. In March, Lido launched EarnUSD, its first stablecoin vault, allocating USDC and USDT deposits across lending markets and real-world asset integrations. Despite the recent rally, LDO remains down 94% from its November 2021 peak of $7.30, and Lido’s share of staked ETH has slipped to a year-to-date low of roughly 23%. The buyback proposal acknowledged the token’s distressed valuation, describing the gap between LDO’s price and Lido’s revenue as “one of the most significant dislocations” in the project’s history.