Lido, a liquid staking solution for ETH 2.0, today announced a partnership with Unslashed Finance, a blockchain-based insurance protocol, to cover approximately $200 million worth of staked ether from slashing. In a DAO-a-DAO transaction, the Lido DAO completed a purchase of slashing cover for 196,749.86 stETH protecting Lido stakers against up to 5% in slashing penalties for stakers with Lido.
This new partnership works to:
- Provide a safer staking experience for users to encourage inclusivity and transparency.
- Build trust between Lido and Ethereum stakers; demonstrating the efforts that the Lido DAO takes to protect stakers.
- Set the precedent that staking insurance is a must-have for serious staking services.
“The need for a partnership of this caliber stems from the existence of an inherent slashing risk on Ethereum 2.0 when staking to Eth2 validators. Slashing refers to the forfeiting of rewards and subsequent losses for an Ethereum validator due to a multitude of factors associated with breaking network consensus; including node downtime or double-signing. It represents a penalty for ineffective validation and results in a loss of funds for validators and, subsequently, for entities staking with these validators.”
– The Lido Team
Since Lido went live in December 2020 as the first liquid Ethereum staking solution; the platform has staked more than 180,000 ETH (around $270,000,000) in its contracts, deposited amongst more than 3370 unique stakers.
Operating with Unslashed will protect Lido stakers against balance decreases associated with slashing and offline penalties for validators across the Lido DAO, mitigating one of the fundamental risk factors associated with Eth2 staking.
Launched in January 2021, Unslashed has now sold more than $400 million worth of protection, and has seen more than $70 million worth of capital used to underwrite a variety of insurance policies. Their first structured insurance product, named Spartan Bucket, contains 24 different policies ranging from Uniswap smart contract insurance to protection against slashing on Lido’s liquid Ethereum staking service.
