One of the largest cryptocurrency staking platforms in the crypto world is LIDO, known for having to its credit the ability to stake coins such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Polkadot, and Kusama. But not only that, but it is by far the largest Ethereum staking platform, especially now that Ethereum 2.0 is already a reality and users can use the full potential of this DApp to get rewards from this platform.
But how does LIDO work? What exactly is your stETH token? How can we use this platform? Well, that is what we will see next.
LIDO, a decentralized staking platform
Lhe easiest way to see LIDO is as a DApp with a very clear purpose: to allow its users to access an easy-to-use and secure decentralized staking platform. To achieve this, LIDO makes use of the powerful Ethereum smart contracts in order to offer all these functionalities.
Of course, this happens when we stake Ethereum, because LIDO is a multi-chain staking platform, each cryptocurrency is kept staked on its respective chain. Thus, if we stake Polygon, this means that our MATIC will be in the Polygon network (or Ethereum, remembering that this token is in both chains) maintaining its security. If, on the other hand, we stake Solana, the SOL token is held on the Solana chain and that is where we will receive our rewards.
Put more simply: LIDO is a platform that greatly facilitates participation in staking projects and has therefore earned a special place in the community. It also has a long history of security, which gives more confidence in its services.
In addition to all this, LIDO is a well-known free software development, where, in fact, we can review the code of its smart contracts from its official account. GitHub. Thus, we can see that there are no hidden functions and that software quality criteria and smarts contracts are met that really ensure the platform and each currency within it.
All this development is thanks to the joint efforts of a large community that has been developing this solution since 2020, shortly after the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain was launched and with a clear objective: to open the doors of staking this network to all those who were interested and who did not want to install their own validation nodes for said network.
How can I use LIDO to stake?
To use LIDO and stake on their platform, all you need is a Web3 wallet to access their DApp. If you are looking to stake Ethereum or Matic, MetaMask is the perfect wallet for it. On the contrary, if you are looking to stake in Solana or Kusama you will have to download wallets compatible with these networks in order to use LIDO and stake within it.
To start the staking process you just have to click on “Stake Now”:
And then choose the currency you want to use for staking:
Once you have chosen the currency with which you want to stake, you must connect your wallet to the application:
Once the DApp is connected to your wallet, you must indicate the amount of staking you wish to carry out and click on "Submit":
With this, the DApp will take your cryptocurrencies and put them in staking, giving you a proportional part of it in stETH token that you can use in other decentralized applications that accept it. It's that simple to stake within LIDO.