Ether.fi CEO Mike Silagadze has wagered $1 million that Ethereum's proposed EIP-8363 upgrade will concentrate staking power rather than spread it out. The bet targets a draft change meant to cap Ethereum's staking ratio, but Silagadze argues it would instead push smaller liquid staking tokens toward Lido. Governance tokens tied to the affected protocols took immediate hits after he went public.
Mike Silagadze, chief executive of ether.fi, has put up $1 million betting that a newly proposed Ethereum upgrade will do the opposite of what its authors intend. The proposal, EIP-8363, aims to slow the growth of staked ETH; Silagadze argues it would instead consolidate staking power around Lido, the largest liquid staking protocol.
What EIP-8363 would change
EIP-8363, dubbed the "Tapered Issuance Burn," was posted as a draft on August 4. It seeks to cap Ethereum's staking ratio at roughly 50% of total supply by progressively burning a growing share of consensus-layer issuance rewards once staking crosses certain thresholds. At the time of the proposal, Ethereum's staking ratio stood at approximately 34%, with around 41.5 million ETH staked.
Why smaller LSTs could lose out
Cutting validator rewards hits small operators hardest, Silagadze argues, because liquid staking protocols compete mainly on yield. Larger platforms can absorb thinner margins through scale and deep liquidity, but smaller providers depend on marginal yield advantages that shrink once rewards compress.
Liquid staking tokens collectively held about 15 million ETH when the proposal appeared. Lido's stETH already commanded roughly 63% of that segment, a position valued at approximately $28.2 billion. On August 7, Silagadze said publicly that while ether.fi would not refuse the upgrade, EIP-8363 could push small liquid staking tokens to migrate capital toward Lido.
Market and community reaction
The proposal moved prices immediately. LDO, Lido's governance token, dropped approximately 15%, while ETHFI, ether.fi's token, fell around 12%, though both staged partial recoveries. Aave founder Stani Kulechov has also publicly opposed EIP-8363 on X and in the Ethereum Magicians forum, and core developers were scheduled to discuss the draft around August 8.
Silagadze frames the wager as a way to make the debate measurable: a shift in Lido's share from 63% toward 70% or higher would validate his thesis that the burn mechanism consolidates rather than distributes staking power.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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