Announcing Partnership With Chainlink on Adopting CCIP as Official Cross-Chain Infrastructure For wstETH

Lido -

Lido, the leading liquid staking protocol, is integrating the Chainlink interoperability standard, with Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) serving as the official cross-chain infrastructure for Wrapped Staked Ether (wstETH). With this integration, all cross-chain transfers of wstETH will be secured by Chainlink CCIP by leveraging the Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard. In coming months, wstETH will progressively implement the new infrastructure on each of the 16 chains in stages, with thorough multi-step execution. In addition, early expansions are already happening on Plasma, Monad, Ink and 0G via CCIP.

 

Check out the full partnership proposal here.

 

This integration marks a significant step forward in enhancing the security and interoperability of wstETH across the multi-chain ecosystem, driving new opportunities for wstETH holders and DeFi protocols. To unlock these new possibilities, wstETH is adopting the CCT standard, which supports self-serve deployments, full sovereign control and ownership of token contracts, enhanced programmability, and zero-slippage transfers, all backed by CCIP’s robust security. The migration from native bridges and other providers is planned over the coming months.

 

Built on Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network platform, CCIP enables secure cross-chain interoperability, leveraging time-tested infrastructure that secures $100B in DeFi TVL and has enabled over $26 trillion in onchain transaction value.

 

Key benefits unlocked by adopting CCIP include:

  • Maintain Control, Retain Autonomy: The CCT standard allows the DAO autonomy to be preserved, with bridging endpoints and (w)stETH token contracts transferable back to the DAO via governance at any time.
  • Future-proof reach: CCIP continues to add support for new chains, enabling permissionless onboarding of tokens while preserving token-issuer ownership and security properties across 65+ blockchains.
  • Always-on infrastructure: CCIP is built on the same time-tested infrastructure as other Chainlink oracle services that underpin prominent protocols across DeFi, ensuring the highest level of security and reliability in every cross-chain transaction.
  • Robust security: CCIP employs multiple layers of security, including independent monitoring of cross-chain activity, whose aim is to help protect token transfer flows even during volatile market conditions and network congestion.
  • Modular configurability: CCIP enables the Lido DAO to configure custom safeguards into cross-chain wstETH transfers, such as an emergency pause function to disable bridging functionality if any anomaly is detected, as well as require additional confirmations from external verifiers for high cumulative transfer values.
  • Zero-slippage transfers: CCT’s burn/mint architecture removes reliance on volatile third-party liquidity pools for routing wstETH between chains.
  • Cross-chain governance: CCIP’s support for arbitrary message passing between chains unlocks advanced governance structures across chains, including governance forwarding. 

 

Growing The Cross-Chain Role of wstETH

This integration builds on Lido’s existing use of the Chainlink platform, including secure Data Feeds that facilitate the adoption of stETH/wstETH across DeFi (e.g., Aave) and CCIP-powered Direct Staking rails that enables users to stake ETH directly from other networks and receive wstETH.

 

“For stakers, the ability to move assets quickly across the ecosystem is essential for seizing opportunities, rebalancing liquidity, and managing their staked ETH efficiently. By adopting Chainlink CCIP as the official cross-chain standard for wstETH, we’re giving users and builders a standardized, secure way to move wstETH across chains. The Cross-Chain Token standard keeps ownership with the Lido community while adding the programmatic safeguards needed as wstETH scales to more networks.” - Jakov Buratovic, Master of DeFi at Lido.

 

“We’re excited to see Lido adopt Chainlink CCIP as the official cross-chain standard for wstETH across the multi-chain ecosystem. This integration is set to significantly expand access to wstETH across DeFi, with cross-chain flows secured by Chainlink’s defense-in-depth architecture. We’re proud to support Lido in scaling wstETH safely and at institutional scale.” - Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs. 

 

Following the recent approval by Lido DAO snapshot voting, the Lido Ecosystem Foundation is leading all bridge-related strategic partnerships and negotiations involving stETH and wstETH to unlock new opportunities that strengthen the Lido protocol’s competitiveness and resilience in a rapidly evolving market landscape.

 

 

About Lido

Lido is the name of a family of open-source peer-to-system software tools deployed and functioning on the Ethereum blockchain network. With a mission to democratize staking, the protocol enables users to mint transferable utility tokens, which receive rewards linked to the related validation activities of writing data to the blockchain, while the tokens can be used in other on-chain activities. Learn more: lido.fi

Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi. Learn more: chain.link