LDO, RPL See Double-Digit Declines Despite Liquid Staking Growth

If there is one sector of the crypto market that has experienced massive adoption despite the torrid market conditions, it’s the liquid staking sector. However, Liquid Staking Tokens (LSTs) like Lido Finance (LDO) and Rocket Pool (RPL) have not had the same performance.

Sebastian Motelay, research analyst at Token Terminal, posted on X (formerly Twitter) about the matter. According to Motelay, Lido remains the dominant project out of all the liquid staking protocols, with an 84.4% market share.

But on the market cap to asset staked ratio, Lido’s performance was underwhelming. At the time of writing, the ratio was 0.11—a very low value compared to the median value in the sectors. Meanwhile, there were still some positives to consider in the Lido ecosystem. One of these was the increase in Lido stETH token holders.

At press time, there were 271,350 holders of the token. This was fourteen times the number of RPL tokens staked. Regardless of the disparity in staking, LDO and RPL’s 3-month performance was nothing to be excited about.

LDO May Recover

According to CoinMarketCap, LDO has lost 17.88% of its value. RPL was worse off, with a 44.58% decline within the last 90 days.

The LDO/USD 4-hour chart showed that there was no clear direction for the token. This was also evident in the Exponential Moving Average (EMA) position. At the time of writing, the 20 EMA (blue) had slightly crossed over the 50 EMA (yellow).

Although this is a bullish sign, LDO’s price may not increase significantly as the 50 EMA is still close by. Previously, bulls’ attempts at pushing up the price have been met with rejection around $1.61. However, if accumulation increases, then there is a possibility for LDO to move toward $1.65.

LDO/USD 4-Hour Chart (Source: TradingView)

RPL Stays Bearish

While LDO showed minor signs of recovery, RPL stayed put with its bearish market structure. As of this writing, there was almost no sign of buyers in the market. Furthermore, the Bollinger Bands (BB) had contracted, indicating low volatility.

So, RPL may not experience any major fluctuations and may continue trading in a tight range between $19.90 and $20.20. Additionally, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) was 36.02.

RPL/USD 4-Hour Chart (Source: TradingView)

The RSI at the said value indicates bearish momentum. Therefore, RPL is likely to remain in control of sellers for the time being.