Lido Finance (LDO) Targets $2.35 on Account of Surging AuM

As one of the largest liquid staking projects in the crypto industry, Lido Finance (LDO) has held on to its place at the top of the chain in the sector. One of the reasons for this is the way it offers its users a staked ETH token called Lido stETH to begin their staking journey.

With Lido stETH, users can stake any amount of ETH instead of the bogus 32 ETH required on the Ethereum Mainnet. Due to this, Lido’s growth in the staking sector has been enormous. But activity and adoption are not the only metrics Lido has gained from.

Staking Flow Grows

According to Staking Reward data, the Assets under Management (AuM) on the Lido network has grown by 37.31% in the last seven days. At press time, the AuM was valued at $18.64 billion. As a result, there has been speculation in some corners that the AuM has the potential to hit $100 billion soon.

The AuM tracks the performance of funds allocated to a project. In Lido’s case, one of the reasons the AuM has grown that much could be linked to its net staking flow. At the time of writing, Lido’s 7-day net staking flow has increased by $310.95 million.

Lido Staking AuM (Source: Staking Rewards)

The surge in the staking flow means more liquidity has been added to the Lido pools lately. It is also a confirmation that users are confident of the offers and security provided by the protocol.

Like ETH, Like LDO

With respect to its native token, LDO seems to be strongly correlating with ETH’s price action. This was evident in the movement of the token when BlackRock filed for an Ethereum ETF on November 9. During that period, ETH moved about $2,000, and LDO followed by jumping above $2.

As of this writing, the price of LDO was $2.26, representing a 2.26% increase in the last seven days. However, the LDO/USD 4-hour chart showed that it was no more a season of rising green bars.

From the chart shared below, there was notable profit-taking of around $2.32 on November 12. This pushed LDO’s price down to $2.22 moments later. But bulls seem determined to pull LDO back up above $2.30. This was seen in the buying pressure created at $2.26.

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

As shown above, the 9-day EMA (blue) had crossed over the 20 EMA (yellow). Taken as a short-term trading strategy, this is a bullish signal. Should buying pressure increase, LDO may no longer correct and probably target $2.35.