- Arthur Hayes purchased 1.85 million LDO tokens, causing a short-term price spike.
- Lido market data shows 690% year-over-year development growth and strong weekly revenue of $14.3 million.
- Lido DAO (LDO)’s major support lies at $0.5546 and immediate resistance lies at $0.7126.
LDO, the governance token of the Lido DAO, has seen a significant increase in price following its high-profile acquisition by crypto veteran Arthur Hayes.
The former BitMEX co-founder acquired 1.85 million LDO tokens in a transaction worth approximately $1.03 million.
This strategic investment attracted the attention of market analysts and investors, sparking renewed interest in Lido’s liquid staking ecosystem.
Hayes’ acquisition shows confidence in Lido DAO
Blockchain analysis firm Onchain Lens reported that LDO tokens were transferred from a Binance hot wallet to a hot wallet associated with Haze.
Just in: Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) purchased 1.85 million $LDO worth $1.03 million from #Binance.
Address: 0x6cd66dbdfe289ab83d7311b668ada83a12447e21 pic.twitter.com/nYsyIMv0tN
— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) December 26, 2025
The acquisition, executed during Ethereum mainnet standard trading hours, marks one of the largest publicly known token purchases by Hayes since leaving BitMEX in 2021.
Historically, his investment decisions have been closely monitored and often influence overall crypto market sentiment.
Notably, the purchase of LDO tokens will coincide with LDO consolidating within a defined trading range following a broader market correction in early 2025.
At the time of the transaction, LDO’s price is approximately $0.556 per token, for a total investment of approximately $1,028,600.
Following this news, LDO posted a short-term rally of around 6%, with trading volume surging over 200% compared to the weekly average. This shows the immediate market impact of prominent investors.
Development and earnings fuel optimism
Beyond Hayes’ involvement, Lido demonstrated a strong fundamental performance.
Lido’s development activity is up 690% year over year, highlighting the protocol’s solid engineering effort and long-term viability.
Recent upgrades such as triggerable withdrawals and carefully selected modules v2 demonstrate continued innovation aimed at maintaining Lido’s dominance in liquid staking.
The governance structure of the LDO token-backed protocol continues to receive attention as it impacts pricing, node operator selection, and strategic upgrade decisions.
The strength of its earning power further strengthens Lido’s position, with the protocol generating $14.3 million in weekly fees, second only to Ethereum itself.
This performance stands out amidst weak layer 1 blockchain activity and reflects the increased adoption of liquid staking derivatives like stETH that integrate with major DeFi platforms such as Aave, Curve, and MakerDAO.
In particular, investors appear increasingly attracted to Lido’s blend of yield opportunities and the protocol’s resilience, even though broader Ethereum staking growth remains modest.
Lido DAO price outlook
From a technical perspective, LDO’s recent recovery is consistent with short-term optimism post-Santa Rally across cryptocurrencies.
The token rose 2% today, outpacing a 30-day drop of nearly 14% and complementing a 7-day rally of 5.26%.
Analysts note that the immediate technical situation is cautious, with daily charts showing LDO above the 10-day EMA but below the 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMA.
The token’s major support is located at $0.5546, with resistance levels identified at $0.7126, $0.9416, and $1.24.
Currently, the 14-day RSI is at 45.65 and the weekly RSI is at 40.76, indicating a neutral situation.
Looking forward, near-term price action will largely depend on whether LDO can continue to capitalize on positive protocol fundamentals and the institutional interest sparked by Haze’s purchases, while maintaining key support levels.
However, investors should closely monitor ongoing upgrades to the protocol, including a safe harbor agreement that provides safety for $26 billion of staked ETH through white-hat hacker protection.
Additionally, as competition intensifies in the liquidity staking space, Lido’s ability to maintain market share, execute strategic upgrades, and leverage governance decisions will determine whether short-term price increases translate into sustained growth.
