New ETH LST: Earn 1.5X Staking Rewards with ETHx by Stader

Before we get started, DeFi Dad wanted to disclose his team at 4RC invested in the Series A for Stader Labs. This is not a recommendation or endorsement to buy any token(s) mentioned.

On Monday, the multichain liquid staking protocol Stader launched its new liquid staking solution ETHx. ETHx is an ETH LST for earning passive ETH staking yield where users can hold any incremental amount, removing the high barrier to entry of holding 32 ETH as a solo ETH staker. Stader Labs developed ETHx by combining some of the best features found in the designs for ETH liquid staking industry leaders Rocket Pool and Lido, plus adding a few new ideas.

Back in 2021-2022, Stader grew to become the top LST on Terra, achieving nearly $1B in TVL prior to the UST/Terra collapse. Since then, the protocol has managed to rebuild and continue developing next generation LSTs for its 50k stakers, including solutions like MaticX ($59M TVL), HBARX ($22M TVL), BNBx ($10M TVL), NearX ($4.7M), and sFTMx ($4.1M). 

The new ETHx design offers the following advantages:

• Lowest ETH Bond: ETHx optimizes for permissionless stakers by requiring the lowest bond available for node operators–4 ETH, democratizing the ability to run a validator.
• Hybrid Pool Architecture: ETHx is powered by a hybrid model of Rocket Pool and Lido. The backbone of the protocol is a pool for permissionless stakers to pair 28 ETH with their 4 ETH bond. Meanwhile, a separate pool of permissioned node operators is able to pick up the slack when there’s