stETH Staking — Frequently Asked Questions

stETH (staked Ether) is a liquid staking token issued by Lido Finance — the largest Ethereum liquid staking protocol. When you deposit ETH into Lido, you receive an equivalent amount of stETH in return.

stETH represents both your original ETH stake and the staking rewards you earn over time. Unlike traditional staking, your ETH remains liquid: you can trade, lend, or use stETH in DeFi while it continues earning staking rewards.

As of 2026, Lido controls roughly 30% of all staked ETH, making stETH the most liquid and widely used staking derivative on Ethereum.

stETH rebases once per day, typically around 12:00 UTC. Each rebase is triggered by the Lido oracle reporting the total rewards earned by Lido's validator set to the smart contract.

After a rebase, your stETH balance automatically increases to reflect the rewards. For example, if you hold 10 stETH and the daily rebase adds 0.001%, your balance becomes 10.0001 stETH — no action required on your part.

The annualised yield (APY) from rebases typically ranges from 3% to 5% depending on network conditions, validator performance, and the overall amount of ETH staked.

In most jurisdictions — including the US, UK, Germany, and Australia — each daily stETH rebase is treated as ordinary income at the fair market value of the ETH received on the day of the rebase.

For example, if your stETH balance increases by 0.0005 ETH on a day when ETH is worth $3,000, you have $1.50 of taxable income for that day. Over a year this accumulates across every single rebase event.

StakeFlow automatically generates a full tax report showing every rebase event, the ETH amount, the USD price at date, and the income recognised. Read our complete Tax Guide →

stETH is a rebasing token — your wallet balance increases every day as rewards accrue. This works great for simple holding, but some DeFi protocols (Aave, Curve, Pendle) cannot handle rebasing tokens natively.

wstETH (wrapped stETH) solves this by wrapping stETH into a non-rebasing form. Your wstETH balance stays constant, but the exchange rate between wstETH and stETH increases over time as rewards accumulate. Economically both are equivalent.

For tax purposes, wstETH rewards are recognised differently — instead of daily income events, you realise a gain when you unwrap or sell wstETH. StakeFlow tracks both stETH and wstETH positions.

Connect your Ethereum wallet on StakeFlow to instantly see:

• Real-time stETH APY based on your actual rebase history
• Daily reward chart for the last 30 days
• Total PnL in USD and ETH since your first deposit
• ROI and annualised return per position
• Full tax report exportable as CSV

No registration required — just enter your Ethereum wallet address. Your data is read-only; StakeFlow never requests transaction signing or private keys.