On October 15, 2026, Lido announced direct ETH staking from four Ethereum Layer 2 networks: Arbitrum, Base, Linea, and Optimism. The feature lives in its main interface at stake.lido.fi, and users on those chains can stake in a single transaction and receive wrapped staked ETH, or wstETH, right away.
How the plumbing works
You deposit ETH on your Layer 2 of choice, and wstETH arrives in your wallet from a liquidity pool that lives on that same network.
Deposited ETH is bridged to Ethereum mainnet, where Lido stakes it and mints staked ETH, known as stETH. That stETH is then wrapped into wstETH and routed back to the Layer 2 to refill the local pool.
Coordination between chains runs on Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, or CCIP, the messaging layer that lets the Layer 2 and mainnet agree on who sent what, and where it needs to land.
Lido’s protocol fee stays at 10% of staking rewards, and users keep the other 90%.
Not Lido’s first Layer 2 rodeo
Direct staking on Linea went live in October 2025. Around mid-2025, Lido also worked with partners including XSwap to offer direct staking on Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism in phased rollouts. The October 2026 launch pulls that work under Lido’s own roof, with four networks sharing a single front door.
As of mid-to-late October 2026, Lido holds approximately 8.4 to 9.7 million ETH in staked assets, giving it roughly 19-21% market share in liquid staking.
The feature runs in parallel with Lido V3 and stVaults. The design adds liquidity pools and cross-chain messaging onto the existing stETH/wstETH system rather than rebuilding it, keeping the core mechanics familiar to DeFi applications that already use these tokens.
The instant user experience depends on local pools staying stocked and on cross-chain messages flowing smoothly through CCIP, making periods of heavy demand the real stress test for how quickly replenishment keeps up.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.