Lido extends 0% infrastructure fee for stVaults until October 31

Lido Finance is keeping the welcome mat out for early adopters of its modular staking infrastructure. The protocol’s decentralized autonomous organization has extended its 0% infrastructure fee on stVaults through October 31, 2026, a meaningful discount from the standard 1% rate that applies to qualifying vaults holding at least 250 ETH and operated by identified node operators. The extension is the latest in a series of renewals throughout 2026. Queue wait times have exceeded 50 days at various points this year, making it expensive and slow for new participants to spin up validators. What stVaults actually are stVaults launched on Ethereum mainnet on January 30, 2026, as part of Lido’s V3 rollout. Each vault can be configured with its own fee structure, liquidity preferences, and DeFi integrations, all while plugging into Lido’s core systems and minting stETH tokens. For the 0% fee to apply, two conditions must be met. The vault needs to hold a minimum of 250 ETH in total value. And the operator must be an “Identified Node Operator,” meaning they’ve gone through Lido’s vetting process rather than running anonymous infrastructure. Why the repeated extensions matter The promotional ...