Lido DAO (LDO): governance, advanced delegated staking and taxation in Spain

#Lido DAO and LDO: Governance Token Taxation and Advanced Staking

Lido Finance is responsible for custody over 30% of all ETH staked on Ethereum. Its LDO governance token allows holders to vote on critical decisions: which node operators to manage, commission rates, protocol upgrades. For the Spanish investor, both stETH and LDO have their own tax implications.

Reminder: stETH and its taxation

Staking ETH on Lido generates stETH. Lido charges a commission of 10% of the performance:

• If staking APY is 4%, stETH has ~3.6% real APY.
• stETH is a rebasing token: the amount increases automatically.
• Or you can use wstETH (wrapped stETH): fixed amount, price increases with respect to ETH.

For the taxation of stETH/wstETH, see the article on liquid staking (Ethereum PoS). Here we focus on LDO.

LDO: the governance token

LDO does not entitle the protocol fees directly (unlike veCRV or SUSHI). It is a pure governance token:

LDO Sources for Investors

1. Buy on the marketplace (Binance, Uniswap, etc.).
2. Lido airdrops: In the early years, LDOs were distributed to early stakers.
3. Farming with stETH in some protocols (although Lido does not distribute LDO directly by staking).

Purchase tax: acquisition cost = price paid.
Airdrop taxation: General base GPO at the market value of the airdrop.
Taxation for farming: RCM at the market value at the time of receipt.

The DAO: Lido votes

LDO holders vote on:

• Approval of new node operators.
• Changes in commission rate (currently 10%).
• Insurance and coverage protocols.
• Lido expansion to new chains.

Voting in the DAO does not generate a tax event. It is simply a right of the token.

Lido on other chains: stSOL, stMATIC, stDOT

Lido has expanded its staking to Solana (stSOL), Polygon (stMATIC), and Polkadot (stDOT):

stSOL (Lido Solana liquid staking):

• Same model as stETH: SOL → stSOL (possible transmission).
• stSOL rebasing: implicit or explicit rents depending on the implementation.
• Lido withdrew its Solana services in 2023 → if you had stSOL, you should have converted it to SOL. That conversion is a transmission of stSOL (GPO).

stMATIC (now stPOL):

• Lido supports Polygon staking. Similar taxation.
• Remove or convert before support ends if applicable.

Voting via Aragon

The Lido DAO uses Aragon as a voting platform. Onchain votes are transactions in Ethereum (gas fee):

• Each vote costs a small amount of ETH in gas.
• That ETH is a cost of participation in governance → higher cost of acquiring the voting right (which is intangible and part of the LDO token).

Fiscally: the gas fee for a vote is not directly deductible as an expense (unless it is an economic activity).

Lido staking via third party protocols

Some protocols (Curve, Convex, Yearn) offer stETH loops:

• stETH on Curve (stETH/ETH pool): pool fees + CRV emissions.
• stETH deposited in Yearn: auto-compounding of fees and emissions.

Each additional layer adds more tax events. See specific articles for each protocol.

Insurance for stETH (Nexus Mutual, Unslashed)

Some investors buy DeFi insurance in case Lido suffers a massive slashing:

• The insurance premium in ETH/DAI → financial expense (debate on deductibility).
• If the insurance pays (slashing event) → compensation received = GPO or extraordinary income.

LDO and stETH taxation table

Updated: April 2026 | Fiscal year: 2025