In recent days, Ethereum has pulled out a strong bullish candlestick, boosting the morale of ‘E guards’ and quickly heating up the bullish sentiment in the market. This strong rise has not only brought a comprehensive recovery to the Ethereum ecosystem but also further increased market expectations for the Ethereum spot ETF staking function, especially making related staking projects a hot spot for capital pursuit.

Ethereum rebounds strongly, ETF staking expectations boost confidence

Recently, Ethereum has seen a strong rebound for consecutive days, with a total market value surpassing Alibaba, ranking 39th in global asset market value. Related skyrocketing topics have topped the Douyin hot list, becoming a hotly debated focus in the market.

According to CoinGecko data, as of May 12, the price of Ethereum rose to $2521, hitting a near two-month high, with a 40.4% increase in just the past 7 days, and a market value surge of over $87.58 billion in a single week. Meanwhile, Coinglass data shows that as of the time of publication, Ethereum’s monthly return in May has reached 39.53%, not only marking the strongest monthly gain since 2025, but also significantly surpassing the median gain (18.43%) and the average gain (31.15%) in May over the years. This strong rebound not only ended Ethereum’s three-month downtrend but also became a significant turning point in the market sentiment repair, demonstrating a synchronous warming of capital and investment confidence.

On-chain capital movements further validate this trend. Artemis data shows that in the past 7 days, the Ethereum ecosystem has attracted as much as $1.2 billion in capital inflows, ranking first among all blockchains. Net inflows exceeded $490 million, far ahead of other mainstream public chains.

This rebound is considered to be the result of multiple factors resonating, including marginal improvement in macroeconomic policies, price recovery from previous excessive bearish sentiment, upcoming Ethereum Pectra upgrade, continued expansion of real narratives, and positive expectations for Ethereum spot ETF stake.

Among them, the ETF staking function is expected to become one of the important catalysts. In the past few months, many institutions have actively sought SEC approval to allow the introduction of staking mechanisms in crypto ETF products. Although the SEC has recently delayed approval for applications from institutions such as Fidelity and Grayscale, related discussions are accelerating.

At the end of April this year, Grayscale met with the US SEC encryption working group in Washington, D.C. to discuss changes in the staking supervision of Ethereum ETPs, stating that the total assets managed by the US Ethereum ETP reached $8.1 billion. However, due to the inability to participate in staking, it has lost approximately $61 million in revenue since its launch until February 2025. The institution pointed out that introducing a staking mechanism will help enhance the security of the Ethereum network and provide additional returns to shareholders.

Another asset management giant, BlackRock, recently met with the SEC’s cryptocurrency working group to discuss topics such as cryptocurrency asset regulation, ETF staking, and options products. Documents show that the meeting discussed “considerations for promoting ETPs with staking functionality,” as well as parameters for determining positions and exercise limits for cryptocurrency ETF options, and specific criteria for approving cryptocurrency ETFs. Robert Mitchnick, head of BlackRock’s digital assets division, who attended the meeting, had stated in March that if an Ethereum spot ETF could incorporate staking functionality, although there are some “complex challenges” to solve, staking returns are an important way to achieve investment returns in this field, which could be a “leap forward” for Ethereum.

It is worth noting that the Hong Kong regulators have taken the lead in the issue of encrypted ETF stake. In April this year, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong issued new guidelines allowing licensed Virtual Asset Trading Platforms (VATPs) to provide staking services to customers, while virtual asset funds (such as Ethereum spot ETFs) can participate in on-chain staking activities under a prudent regulatory framework, and subsequently approved two Ethereum spot ETF products with staking functionality.

The positive progress of the ETF staking has effectively boosted market expectations for Ethereum and further accelerated the confidence recovery process.

Staking track has heated up significantly, with the TVL and token price of top projects soaring together

The Ethereum staking track has also become one of the focal points for capital and narratives. According to DeFiLlama data, as of May 12, the TVL of the Ethereum staking track has rebounded to $34.11 billion, achieving a 60.3% increase in the past month. At the same time, the TVL of the re-staking track has also risen to nearly $12.85 billion, with a 54.8% increase in the past 30 days.

This article by PANews summarizes the latest market trends and performance of the top 5 staking projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, which have made breakthroughs in technical progress, governance mechanisms, and ecosystem development, driving the overall market rebound. TVL and token prices have both achieved double-digit growth.

Lido: TVL soared to nearly 23 billion US dollars, driven by both technology and governance

Lido is the largest liquid staking protocol. DeFiLlama data shows that as of May 12th, Lido’s TVL is approximately $22.93 billion, with a staggering increase of 57.5% in the past month. Meanwhile, Coingecko data shows that its native token LDO has also surged by about 48.6% during the same period.

In recent months, Lido has made progress in both governance and technology. In April, Lido DAO launched a number of governance votes, including Snapshot voting and Aragon main phase voting, which involved protocol updates and decision-making. In the same month, Lido also launched the V3 testnet, where developers can create custom staking solutions using Lido stVaults on the Hoodi Ethereum testnet. Lido stVault is a modular primitive that allows stakers, node operators, and protocols to tailor staking solutions to their needs. Users can customize fee structures, verify settings, optimize risk/reward structures, and more, while retaining the benefits of stETH. Not long ago, Lido announced the imminent launch of a “dual governance” mechanism, a dynamic time-locking mechanism that allows stETH holders to exit Lido on Ethereum in the face of a controversial Lido DAO governance motion.

It is worth mentioning that, despite the recent attention due to the suspected leakage of the Chorus One oracle private key, Lido DAO has initiated an emergency proposal for the first time, and the staked users have not been affected. The protocol is still safe and operating normally. At the same time, since the Lido oracle system adopts a 9 out of 5 multi-signature mechanism, a single oracle failure will not threaten the system, and the other nodes remain unaffected.

EigenLayer: Multi-line push to boost coin price and TVL to soar

EigenLayer continues to firmly occupy the leading position in the staking track. According to DeFiLlama data, as of May 12th, EigenLayer’s TVL reached $11.36 billion, an increase of about 52% in the past month. At the same time, Coingecko data shows that its native token EIGEN has risen by 69.7% during the same period.

In the past two months, EigenLayer has been continuously advancing in technical upgrades, developer ecosystem, and application expansion. In mid-April, EigenLayer’s Slashing (penalty mechanism) was officially launched on the mainnet. Operators and stakers using EigenPod CLI after the upgrade need to upgrade their checkpoints. At the same time, the application verification services (AVS) can now directly implement penalty conditions on the mainnet. Soon after, EigenLayer announced the upcoming launch of the Redistribution feature, bringing new capabilities to its Slashing upgrade. This feature allows decentralized verification services (AVS) to reallocate funds after staking penalties, rather than directly destroying them, thus supporting more complex use cases such as lending and insurance protocols. The initial support will include non-ETH assets (such as LSTs, EIGEN, USDC, and AVS tokens), with ETH not yet within the supported range, and planned to launch on the Ethereum mainnet in June. In recent days, EigenLayer announced its participation in the Ethereum Pectra upgrade on May 7 to support Ethereum network improvements, and plans to introduce new features such as validator integration for EigenPods, as well as announcing plans to host the ‘Berlin Hacker Village’ in Berlin to attract global developers to build the next generation of verifiable applications.

Rocket Pool: From node incentives to ecosystem integration, driving TVL and coin price to rise together

Rocket Pool is also one of the highly anticipated Ethereum staking protocols. DeFiLlama data shows that Rocket Pool’s TVL has reached $1.74 billion, an increase of about 56.3% in the past month. Meanwhile, according to Coingecko data, its native token RPL has increased by approximately 67.5% during the same period.

In the past two months, Rocket Pool has mainly focused on technical upgrades, community governance, and the expansion of the DeFi ecosystem. For example, in March, Rocket Pool announced the distribution of 133 ETH to node operators, emphasizing that the pool is free to join and has no usage fees, attracting more participants; in April, Rocket Pool released Smart Node updates and held community calls to discuss whether DAO should raise funds through bridge fees and share quarterly product development roadmap updates, as well as promote the integration of rETH in DeFi protocols; in May, Rocket Pool actively promoted node software updates to support the launch of Pectra upgrades.

Symbiotic: TVL breaks through 1 billion US dollars, securing tens of millions of dollars in financing

The re-staking protocol Symbiotic mainly emphasizes modular security and capital efficiency. DeFiLlama data shows that Symbiotic’s TVL has exceeded $10.9 billion, up by about 45% in the past month.

Over the past two months, Symbioticfi has been continuously advancing its general re-staking protocol and has made positive progress in financing recently. In April, Symbiotic announced the completion of a $29 million Series A financing, with participation from institutions such as Paradigm, CyberFund, Pantera Capital, and Coinbase Venture. In the same month, ether.fi announced the launch of a $40 million crypto venture capital fund, with Symbiotic being one of its first investment projects.

SSV Network: The coin price has risen by over 90% this month, with over 100,000 active validators.

According to the official website, as of May 12th, the TVL of SSV Network has exceeded $8.9 billion, with the number of ETH staked approaching 3.467 million. Coingecko data shows that in the past month, its token SSV has surged as high as 91.6%.

Recently, SSV Network announced in a post that its active validators have exceeded 100,000, accounting for about one-tenth of Ethereum validators. The tweet received support from many partners such as Lido, Renzo, Kraken, ChainLayer, HashKey Cloud, Nansen, Swell, and Eigenpie. At the same time, SSV Network announced on May 6th that SSV 2.0 testnet is live on Hoodi, aiming to significantly improve the security of the Ethereum ecosystem by introducing the concept of “application-based” (bApps) and reducing developers’ security costs by up to 90%, while providing validators with risk-free returns, thereby unlocking more value for the entire ecosystem.

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