Lido Staked Ether (stETH) is a derivative of Ethereum (ETH) that is staked on the Lido protocol. Lido is a decentralized platform that allows users to stake their ETH and participate in Ethereum's proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Staking ETH helps secure the Ethereum network in a more energy-efficient and scalable way.
Lido's main advantage is that it enables users to stake any amount of ETH without a minimum requirement, unlike traditional staking that typically requires 32 ETH. By staking ETH through Lido, users receive stETH tokens, which represent their staked ETH and can be used for trading, lending, or as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.