The Lido Labs Foundation launched stVaults on the Ethereum mainnet on Friday.
stVaults marks a shift from a single product model to shared staking on the protocol by opening its infrastructure to external builders.
In short, stVaults lets other teams plug into Lido’s staking system instead of building their own from scratch. Until now, developing Ethereum staking products has typically meant setting up validators, integrations, and liquidity independently, which can be a costly and complex process. stVaults aims to lower this barrier by allowing builders to use Lido’s existing pipeline while customizing the way staking works for users.
stVault is a standalone staking environment that allows teams to run custom validator configurations and optionally mint stETH while maintaining connectivity to Lido’s liquidity and DeFi integration. Lido said its core staking protocol remains unchanged and stVaults operates alongside it.
The launch comes as Ethereum staking moves away from a one-size-fits-all offering towards more specialized setups. These include institutional-grade staking with tighter controls, application-specific staking products, and layer 2 networks that embed staking directly into their infrastructure, all without fragmenting liquidity in competing pools.
Initial deployments include Linea, Consensys’ layer 2 network, which uses stVaults to stake a portion of the bridge’s ETH and redirect rewards to liquidity providers and ecosystem incentives. Blockchain analytics company Nansen also used stVaults to launch its first Ethereum staking product.
“stVaults demonstrates how Ethereum staking has evolved. Different users now require different setups,” said Isidoros Passadis, Head of Staking at the Lido Labs Foundation. “With stVaults, the Lido protocol can support these needs within a single framework while maintaining the liquidity and transparency that stETH is known for.”
Learn more: Lido goes modular with Vault-based ‘V3’ upgrade