If we compare the on-chain activity of the LDO when the prices were similar in the month of
July’22, we find many differences.
There has been an enormous increase in the Daily Active Address and Whale Transactions which supports the claim the protocol is much more vital than ever.

What's the narrative?

Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs) are trending in the market, with the upcoming Shanghai upgrade in Mar’23 for the Ethereum blockchain, the ETH staked for ETH 2.0 from past 2 years will soon be available for unstaking. There are around 16 million ETH staked representing roughly 13-15% of the total ether supply valued at $22.3 billion at the current price. These staked ETH will be free to move to any DeFi derivative staking pool. Given this freedom, the market will shine a bright light on platforms offering the best experience, security record, and wider composability within the DeFi ecosystem.

There is also a fear that tokens locked for the past 2 years (around $22 Billion) will bring selling pressure in the market, however, this is likely to be the scenario, now that there will be no locking mechanism more and more users will be interested in staking to earn stable returns in their long term holding digital asset ETH. The APR currently ranges from 4-6% and sometimes goes even high as 7-8%.
On 7th Feb, Lido DAO announced the roadmap for Lido 2.0 which is expected to launch in March-April 2023. For more information: Lido V2