Lido Stakers Can Expect Ether Withdrawals 'No Sooner Than Early May'

Investors who have staked their ether (ETH) through Lido – the dominant liquid staking platform – can expect ETH withdrawals “no sooner than early May,” a Lido protocol developer who goes by Kadmil.eth said in a Twitter space on Thursday.

To enable withdrawals on the Ethereum blockchain, Lido needs to properly prepare the launch of its V2 test network and complete several security audits of its V2 upgrade.

While Shapella, a software upgrade that will enable ether withdrawals, is set to occur on April 12, the preparation of Lido’s V2 testnet and completion of its multiple security audits won't be ready by Shapella. LidoDAO community members had previously voted for the software overhaul in early March.

Lido’s V2 upgrade is “significant in scope” and the “biggest upgrade” for Lido on Ethereum, where more than 5.9 million ETH have been staked. The V2 upgrade will enable ETH withdrawals on the liquid-staking platform.

Lido is the largest decentralized-finance protocol with $11.2 billion in total value locked, according to crypto stats website DefiLlama. The price of LDO, Lido’s governance token, was down 6% in the past 24 hours $2.50, according to CoinGecko.

When talking about the complexity of staking withdrawals for Lido on Ethereum, Kadmil cited a cybernetic principle and said, “The system we are building on top of something should be at least as rich and robust as something we are building upon.”