Lido's Ethereum system lets staking value be represented by transferable tokens while the underlying ether participates in validation. The accounting tracks the deposited value together with staking rewards and penalties. stETH represents this exposure, while LDO serves a governance role and is not a receipt for the same ether. Holding a liquid-staking token differs from operating an independent validator: the holder also relies on protocol contracts, accounting reports, and the operators involved in the staking arrangement.

stETH uses share-based rebasing: a holder's displayed balance changes as the protocol updates its accounting. wstETH wraps that exposure into a token whose quantity normally stays constant while the amount of stETH represented by each unit changes. An illustrative increase in the wstETH conversion rate is therefore not an unexplained mint of additional wstETH. The distinction matters for lending and exchange integrations whose bookkeeping assumes token balances change only through transfers. Neither accounting format fixes the token's secondary-market price against ETH at every moment.

Selling stETH on an exchange depends on available liquidity and the quoted price. A protocol withdrawal instead enters Lido's withdrawal queue and receives an unstETH NFT representing the claim. The request must be finalized before the reserved ether can be claimed, and the NFT is consumed when that claim is completed. This staged process means the ability to transfer a staking token is not the same as instant redemption of underlying ETH. Waiting conditions and protocol accounting can affect the exit even when an exchange continues to trade the token.