Binance Users Added the Most ETH Out of All Ethereum Stakers in September

While Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange globally, it trails others in terms of staked ETH. Yet this month, it had the biggest staked ETH inflows out of all participants.

During September, Binance noted a 24% increase in its market share of the Ethereum staking ecosystem, adding more than 303,000 ETH to securing the network. Binance’s boost exceeds OKX and Stakefish, the two closest stakers that increased their presence, by more than tenfold during September.

The company is the fifth-largest Ethereum staker with a 4.57% market share, trailing Lido’s 28% share, unidentified stakers (18%), Coinbase (11%), and EtherFi (4.73%).

While validators controlled by Binance increased their share, the top stakers reduced their exposure. Coinbase reduced its footprint and removed 124,000 ETH from staking, while Lido Finance did the same with 53,000 ETH in outflows.

Centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase are intermediaries between individual stakers and the Ethereum network, aggregating their users' ETH. That means these movements represent an increased interest in Binance users to stake their ETH.

While staking rewards on Ethereum are constantly shifting, staking rewards collected by Binance users are currently up to 3.16% today from 2.76% a month ago. That compares with Coinbase, which offers 2.34% APY. Lido Finance, the largest staking pool, offers 3.2% to its stakers.

Binance did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Defiant

Moves on the Restaking Front

Lido is seeking to expand its share of the institutional market after its staking market share declined to 28% from 32% at the start of the year.

The protocol announced a large move yesterday, adding Fireblocks, an enterprise-grade infrastructure and custody company, to its restaking ecosystem. Earlier in the month, Lido integrated Wintermute for collateral support of stETH.

On the restaking front, Karak is lagging behind EigenLayer and Symbiotic with outflows over the past month, after a sizzling hot start in April with $143 million in total value locked (TVL) just days after it announced its launch.

Meanwhile, in the liquid restaking (LRT) sector, the status quo prevails. EtherFi dominates by a wide margin, with 57% of all LRT, followed by Puffer Finance with 15%, Renzo with 10%, and Kelp DAO with 7%.