Chun Wang, a principal player in the cryptocurrency mining and staking industry, and a co-founder of major blockchain infrastructure companies F2Pool and Stakefish, has further cut his position in Lido DAO (LDO).
Wang sold 500,000 LDO tokens for 807,412 USDT at an average price of $1.615. This recent sale is part of a larger ongoing effort by Wang to liquidate his holdings in Lido DAO since his return to the market after a 10.5-month break in November 2024.
Wang’s actions have attracted a lot of attention, particularly because he was an early supporter of Lido DAO. As a founding member, Wang received a large number of LDO tokens (a type of cryptocurrency) when it launched in December 2020. Lido DAO is an organization that operates on the blockchain; it allows people around the world to stake their assets. Wang’s current move into the market and the sales he has been making have brought up fears that he obviously plans to sell a number of assets and that, if he continues to sell in the same way, it will cause the price of LDO to go down in the future.
A Long History with Lido DAO and Continued Liquidation
Chun Wang has been in association with Lido DAO since its formation when he was given an allocation of 20 million LDO tokens. This was on December 17, 2020. Since the early days, helping out as a founder, he has been kind of an investor in the sense that he was given tokens in exchange for helping get the project off the ground. However, in recent times, he has been offboarding those tokens to, presumably, investors who would like to have a stake in the project.
Wang has returned to the market after nearly a year off, and he’s signaled pretty clearly that he’s going to slowly liquidate some of his LDO holdings. As of November 2024, he has divested a decent-sized portion of his initial allocation. Altogether, Wang has sold 6.1 million LDO tokens, fetching a total of 10.419 million USDT, with an average sale price of about $1.708 per LDO token. This selling pattern has prompted some speculation about what Wang is up to with the Lido DAO project and his various crypto holdings.
Wang’s most recent sale of 500,000 LDO for 807,412 USDT serves to highlight his continuing and perhaps deepening exit from the Lido ecosystem. The sale at an average price of $1.615 does represent a minor downturn from the average price of his earlier exit trades, and it puts LDO in the category of being flat to down as far as ongoing price performance is concerned. Wang is doing two things that are fairly clear: one is maintaining liquidity, and the other is doing this very much in the slow and steady category of exit strategies.
Remaining Lido Holdings: What’s Left for Chun Wang?
Even as his sales have continued, Chun Wang has kept a great deal of his original LDO allocation. He currently possesses 2.5 million LDO tokens—that’s worth around $4.07 million at today’s market price. So, even though Wang seems to have divested a “substantial amount” of his initial holding to say the least, this is by no means a “dried up well,” and Wang could potentially be using this next-to-impotent stake to exert real influence.
Wang’s ongoing choice to liquidate a good part of his Lido holdings could be seen as a smart way to create leave-behind capital for other opportunities, though it could also cause folks to ponder the long-term vision of an early-project member when so much LDO is in play. Regardless, the price implications for LDO when Wang is out of the picture and when LDO is in the picture also seem worth considering. The amount of LDO in a price-signal state can also influence the price of LDO on its own and can also influence its prospects when considered in conjunction with potential price implications for Lido and for Lido’s smart contracts.
Wang’s moves are being watched closely because he is situated so prominently in cryptocurrency, particularly through his leadership roles at F2Pool and Stakefish. His recent decision to sell off portions of his LDO stake could serve as a clear signal to investors or project participants about the future prospect of Lido DAO, especially given how historically important Wang has been to the project’s development. Whether or not Wang’s moves will trigger any market shift remains to be seen. If no shift occurs, then Lido DAO seems a reasonably sound investment, as will be made more clear after all LDO tokens are sold.
The Broader Implications of Chun Wang’s Sales
The liquidation of Lido DAO tokens by Wang, a nearly 40% down from the June 2022 investment level, is a striking development for the overall crypto ecosystem. The reason? This is not just a guy in the crypto space doing crypto stuff. Wang was a pioneer in the DAO space, having co-founded the Lido project, and that makes him an influential figure. The sale of such a large amount of a project’s governance token by its former leader and co-founder is bound to send some fairly rippling, potentially negative, price-sending signals into the crypto market.
Moreover, Wang’s choice to cut back on his holding in Lido DAO could prompt concerns about the project’s future direction. Lido DAO has been one of the premier platforms for providing staking services in the Ethereum ecosystem. But like all crypto projects, it is subject to the whims of the market and of changing investor sentiment. And what might those changes be? Well, if you’re going to sell a significant chunk of something, as a founding member no less, it might just appear to some that you no longer believe in the same kind of long-term value proposition you once did.
Conclusion
Chun Wang continuing to sell his Lido DAO tokens is an indication of a real shift, both for him and the Lido ecosystem. By our estimates, his latest sale of 500,000 LDO tokens for 807,412 USDT brings his total liquidated amount to over 6 million LDO tokens, making him no longer a significant holder of this project. His remaining amount is around 2.5 million LDO tokens, valued at over $4 million, which puts him in the low-adoring sometimes-hero position that this crypto community loves to see. Wang’s near-total exit from Lido has attracted a lot of attention.
Wang is trimming his exposure to Lido, and this shift is bound to have some impact on the price of LDO. But Wang and Lido currently are in a crucial transition period, as the project seeks to construct a sustainable narrative that resonates with the crypto community. Just how sustainable is the Lido story? Can it hold up even when the market is tanking? Or are Wang’s belt-tightening moves really just a reflection of Lido’s uncertain prospects?
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services.
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Image Source: kebox/123RF // Image Effects by Colorcinch
