If you’ve been keeping a close eye on Ethereum news over the past few months, you’ll be aware that since April, investors have finally been able to withdraw their staked Ethereum (ETH) from the staking contract. This was made possible by the Shapella update that was successfully implemented on the mainnet. Nevertheless, a very large group of strikers missed out, as users of liquid-staking provider Lido Finance still had to be patient. The time has now come and these ETH strikers also have access to their funds.
Following a successful on-chain vote, Lido V2 is officially here.https://t.co/36EmuagToD
— Lido (@LidoFinance) May 15, 2023
exchange stETH for ETH
Specifically, users can exchange their stETH for ether at a ratio of 1:1. stETH represents the total initial amount of ETH put into the platform and all staking rewards you have earned as a user. The advantage of liquid strike is that users are liquid at all times and can use this stETH for other purposes, among other things decentralized finance (DeFi). There is also no minimum investment to participate in the process.
To enable withdrawals on the Ethereum blockchain, Lido was required to launch its V2 upgrade. The preparation and completion of the security audits were not completed in time to launch this update simultaneously with the Shapella update.
Despite this, the new version has now been officially launched and thus users can access their original funds again. In a blog lido indicated that the withdrawal process will take less than a day for most users (with less than 1,000 ETH).
Lido said the new V2 received a total of nine audits from various companies, such as Statemind and MixBytes. All have been completed except one by Oxorio, which is expected to be completed by the end of May.
According to data from Nansen has already withdrawn more than 277,644 ETH, putting it currently at 4e place is behind Binance, Coinbase and kraken.
NFTs in the process
A while back you could already read that Lido had announced to include non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the process for users to exchange stETH for ETH. The liquid staking provider has kept its word and is offering users an NFT that represents a withdrawal request and can then be submitted to receive the ether. After the NFT has been redeemed, it will also be burned immediately.
