Can Rocket Pool Joining Forces With Coinbase Steal a March on Lido

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Joel Frank

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Joel Frank

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Since graduating with a degree in economics from the University of Birmingham in 2018, Joel has worked as a financial market/cryptocurrency analyst. He firmly believes that emerging crypto technology...

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June 26, 2023 06:56 EDT

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Rocket Pool, the third largest Ethereum liquid staking protocol by trade value locked (TVL), has joined forces with Coinbase Ventures. According to an announcement on Rocket Pool’s discord channel, Coinbase Ventures will be joining Rocket Pool’s Oracle DAO (oDAO).

Rocket Pool is governed by two decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), with the oDAO tasked with the responsibility of running Rocket Pool’s ETH staking nodes and voting on upgrades to Rocket Pool’s smart contracts. Members of the oDAO are compensated with Rocket Pool’s governance and utility token RPL.

Partnership Tipped to Boost Rocket Pool

Analysts think that the new partnership could help Rocket Pool gain ground on the current market leader in ETH liquid staking, Lido. According to DeFi Llama, Lido currently has 4.88 million ETH tokens staked via its platform. That compares to just under 360K staked via Rocket Pool.

Coinbase Ventures is the venture capital arm of Coinbase, the largest US-based cryptocurrency exchange. Coinbase is itself the second largest provider of ETH liquid staking services, with 1.042 million ETH tokens currently wrapped.

That’s why analysts think the partnership could help Rocket Pool topple Lido as the top ETH liquid staking service. “Coinbase is a household name and having their engineers securing data gives the protocol legitimacy to some institutions,” said pseudonymous Rocket Pool community advocate Jasper. “Further, the whole ecosystem is getting a boost”, he added.

It is worth noting that, according to DeFi Llama, Lido still offers the most attractive ETH staking yield of 5.0% versus Rocket Pool’s 4.43%. Unless Rocket Pool can close this gap in yield, they may have a tough time closing the gap in TVL.

That may not matter to crypto investors who take a more hard-line view on decentralization. Rocket Pool is viewed by many in the crypto space as the most decentralized provider of ETH liquid staking services, owing to its decentralized governance structure.

In wake of the partnership, with the recent collapse of FTX the latest reminder of the risks of crypto centralization, and with the upcoming Ethereum Shanghai upgrade in March expected to allow staked ETH withdrawals for the first time, Rocket Pool is tipped to perform well in the coming months.

But some members of the Rocket Pool community expressed concern about how the influence of a prominent centralized crypto entity (Coinbase) would affect the oDAO’s governance.

RPL Surges to Multi-month Highs

RPL, Rocket Pool’s utility and governance token, has been rallying in recent sessions. RPL was last changing hands just under $32 per token, with monthly gains currently around 65%. Traders are eyeing a potential test of pre-Ethereum merge highs near $44 in the coming weeks.

The news of the partnership with Coinbase Ventures has clearly given prices a boost, while the aforementioned upcoming Ethereum upgrade that will unlock staked ETH withdrawals at the end of Q1 is also giving prices a boost.

If the broader cryptocurrency markets rally continues on bets that easing US inflationary pressures and slowing growth will enable to US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates later this year, then RPL will likely continue its recent path higher.

RPL’s technical outlook is certainly looking good. The cryptocurrency remains in an aggressive uptrend since the start of the year and recently enjoyed a “golden cross”. This is where the 50-Day Moving Average crosses above the 200DMA, an indicator some traders see as bullish.