As 2025 reaches its end, it is time to reflect on a transformative year for stake.link, protocol adoption accelerated sharply throughout the year, marking the transition from a build phase into a scaling phase.

The year began with 3,412,672 LINK staked via stake.link. Over the course of the year, an additional 2,487,328 LINK was converted into stLINK, representing a 72.89% increase. Today, more than 5.9 million LINK has been transformed into liquid, composable capital. This significantly expanded stake.link’s role within the Chainlink ecosystem.

Governance participation scaled alongside adoption. The reSDL ecosystem grew by 38.54%, increasing from 156,554,365 reSDL across 1,422 NFTs to 216,885,366 reSDL held across 2,570 NFTs. With an average lock-up period of three years, this 60M+ reSDL increase reflects sustained, long-term conviction in stake.link’s ve(3,3) yield-bearing governance model.

Demand for the non-custodial liquid staking layer remained consistently high. More than 650,000 LINK has been held in the Priority Pool. This reflects continued appetite to convert idle LINK into yield-generating, composable assets.

Alongside on-chain growth, stake.link’s public presence expanded significantly. The protocol reached 1.8M impressions and 88.3k engagements on X, while follower count increased by 65.05%. Visibility peaked around the stPOL announcement in August, which generated a monthly surge of 237k+ impressions.

Throughout the year, the SDL DAO demonstrated the strength of decentralized governance. A series of pivotal SLURPs (stake.link Upgrade Request Proposals) accelerated the protocol’s evolution into a multi-chain, production-grade liquid staking platform.

Early in the year, SDL upgraded its core liquidity infrastructure by migrating to the StableSwap-NG pool. This optimized the stLINK/LINK pair for higher trading volumes and deeper liquidity. It also established a critical foundation for future borrowing and lending integrations. The pool currently holds approximately 355,000 LINK and 128,000 stLINK, signaling strong secondary-market demand for staked LINK.

Throughout 2025, stLINK maintained its secondary-market peg, with arbitrage mechanisms efficiently correcting deviations and preserving its premium. The Curve pool is already actively used by Folks Finance, where over $2M of wstLINK is deposited as collateral to borrow other assets.

Further integrations across major DeFi protocols are progressing, including an upcoming Aave listing being fine-tuned in preparation for v3.6.

Security, visibility and education remianed core priorities. A partnership with Immunefi launched a dedicated bug bounty program, reinforcing best-in-class security standards. Continued use of Hypernative provided real-time threat detection and monitoring.

Strategic sponsorships of CCIPMetrics and CCIPTracker amplified visibility across the Chainlink community. Sponsorship of SmartCon 2025 New York further cemented stake.link’s position as a cornerstone of the Chainlink ecosystem and last but not least, to support education and accessibility, a series of professional videos produced by TheCryptoPanda were released, helping users deepen their understanding of the protocol and its mechanics.

August marked a pivotal milestone with the announcement of stPOL, stake.link’s first liquid staking token outside the Chainlink ecosystem, developed in collaboration with Polygon. stPOL represents the first step in a broader expansion strategy positioning SDL as an On-Chain LST Index. This approach enables value capture from a growing basket of liquid staking tokens while continuing to rely on the Chainlink technical stack.

Work is underway to improve accessibility by enabling a single-signature staking flow from POL to stPOL, simplifying onboarding and usage. At the infrastructure level, stake.link is also enhancing its stack through Chainlink’s Runtime Environment (CRE). By leveraging CRE, reward distribution will become increasingly automated, transparent, and reliable. This reinforces stake.link’s commitment to delivering one of the most secure and advanced liquid staking solutions on the market.

2025 marked the establishment of stake.link’s first fiscal-year DAO budget.

This framework provides operational flexibility while maintaining full transparency. It lays the foundation for long-term financial sustainability. During the year, the protocol transitioned from a service-only model into a revenue-generating system by staking and max-locking 1,000,000 SDL. The DAO treasury now controls approximately 9,000,000 reSDL, generating an estimated 1,900 stLINK per year.

This revenue was deployed as DAO-Owned Liquidity in the SDL/LINK Uniswap v3 pool, establishing a permanent, DAO-controlled liquidity base. The result is reduced reliance on short-term external incentives, improved market resilience, and ongoing fee capture for the DAO.

2025 also marked the launch of the Chainlink BUILD distribution program. The SDL community played a leading role in allocation and participation. During the Genesis season, 3,864,314 SXT tokens were made eligible for stLINK, wstLINK holders, node operators, and SDL stakers.

In Season 1, the DAO accumulated 2,411,401,919 Cubes, which were strategically allocated across $FOLKS, $SXT, $TRUF, $BKN, and $XSWAP. These developments set the stage for a year focused not just on growth, but on usability and reach.

While 2025 focused on strengthening foundations, including liquidity, revenue, governance, and multi-chain reach, 2026 is centered on accessibility, composability, and protocol maturity.

A newly developed and audited Migration feature will bridge the native Chainlink Community Pool and the stake.link protocol. This tool enables users to initiate unbonding from the native pool and atomically re-stake with stake.link. It preserves security contributions while unlocking immediate liquidity through stLINK, higher yields, and broader DeFi opportunities.

As the SDL LST Index continues to evolve, research into ETH liquid staking and additional high-value LSTs is underway. This expansion is closely tied to the broader Chainlink Effect, where increased adoption drives oracle usage, fee generation, and a powerful economic flywheel. By positioning stake.link at the center of this flywheel, the protocol enables asset issuers to gain instant composability, visibility, and adoption while benefiting from Chainlink’s security and infrastructure.

The community remains the true engine of the SDL protocol.

stake.link is a decentralized, collaborative effort powered by people across many roles and time zones. node operators securing the network, stakers committing capital, contributors building and testing, community educators sharing knowledge, security service providers strengthening resilience, and community members engaging in governance discussions and voting.

Behind every metric in this report are these individual actions, taken day after day, that collectively shape the protocol’s resilience and direction. Thank you to everyone who contributed time, insight, and trust throughout 2025.
The next chapter is built together.

As 2025 reaches its end, it is time to reflect on a transformative year for stake.link, protocol adoption accelerated sharply throughout the year, marking the transition from a build phase into a scaling phase.

The year began with 3,412,672 LINK staked via stake.link. Over the course of the year, an additional 2,487,328 LINK was converted into stLINK, representing a 72.89% increase. Today, more than 5.9 million LINK has been transformed into liquid, composable capital. This significantly expanded stake.link’s role within the Chainlink ecosystem.

Governance participation scaled alongside adoption. The reSDL ecosystem grew by 38.54%, increasing from 156,554,365 reSDL across 1,422 NFTs to 216,885,366 reSDL held across 2,570 NFTs. With an average lock-up period of three years, this 60M+ reSDL increase reflects sustained, long-term conviction in stake.link’s ve(3,3) yield-bearing governance model.

Demand for the non-custodial liquid staking layer remained consistently high. More than 650,000 LINK has been held in the Priority Pool. This reflects continued appetite to convert idle LINK into yield-generating, composable assets.

Alongside on-chain growth, stake.link’s public presence expanded significantly. The protocol reached 1.8M impressions and 88.3k engagements on X, while follower count increased by 65.05%. Visibility peaked around the stPOL announcement in August, which generated a monthly surge of 237k+ impressions.

Throughout the year, the SDL DAO demonstrated the strength of decentralized governance. A series of pivotal SLURPs (stake.link Upgrade Request Proposals) accelerated the protocol’s evolution into a multi-chain, production-grade liquid staking platform.

Early in the year, SDL upgraded its core liquidity infrastructure by migrating to the StableSwap-NG pool. This optimized the stLINK/LINK pair for higher trading volumes and deeper liquidity. It also established a critical foundation for future borrowing and lending integrations. The pool currently holds approximately 355,000 LINK and 128,000 stLINK, signaling strong secondary-market demand for staked LINK.

Throughout 2025, stLINK maintained its secondary-market peg, with arbitrage mechanisms efficiently correcting deviations and preserving its premium. The Curve pool is already actively used by Folks Finance, where over $2M of wstLINK is deposited as collateral to borrow other assets.

Further integrations across major DeFi protocols are progressing, including an upcoming Aave listing being fine-tuned in preparation for v3.6.

Security, visibility and education remianed core priorities. A partnership with Immunefi launched a dedicated bug bounty program, reinforcing best-in-class security standards. Continued use of Hypernative provided real-time threat detection and monitoring.

Strategic sponsorships of CCIPMetrics and CCIPTracker amplified visibility across the Chainlink community. Sponsorship of SmartCon 2025 New York further cemented stake.link’s position as a cornerstone of the Chainlink ecosystem and last but not least, to support education and accessibility, a series of professional videos produced by TheCryptoPanda were released, helping users deepen their understanding of the protocol and its mechanics.

August marked a pivotal milestone with the announcement of stPOL, stake.link’s first liquid staking token outside the Chainlink ecosystem, developed in collaboration with Polygon. stPOL represents the first step in a broader expansion strategy positioning SDL as an On-Chain LST Index. This approach enables value capture from a growing basket of liquid staking tokens while continuing to rely on the Chainlink technical stack.

Work is underway to improve accessibility by enabling a single-signature staking flow from POL to stPOL, simplifying onboarding and usage. At the infrastructure level, stake.link is also enhancing its stack through Chainlink’s Runtime Environment (CRE). By leveraging CRE, reward distribution will become increasingly automated, transparent, and reliable. This reinforces stake.link’s commitment to delivering one of the most secure and advanced liquid staking solutions on the market.

2025 marked the establishment of stake.link’s first fiscal-year DAO budget.

This framework provides operational flexibility while maintaining full transparency. It lays the foundation for long-term financial sustainability. During the year, the protocol transitioned from a service-only model into a revenue-generating system by staking and max-locking 1,000,000 SDL. The DAO treasury now controls approximately 9,000,000 reSDL, generating an estimated 1,900 stLINK per year.

This revenue was deployed as DAO-Owned Liquidity in the SDL/LINK Uniswap v3 pool, establishing a permanent, DAO-controlled liquidity base. The result is reduced reliance on short-term external incentives, improved market resilience, and ongoing fee capture for the DAO.

2025 also marked the launch of the Chainlink BUILD distribution program. The SDL community played a leading role in allocation and participation. During the Genesis season, 3,864,314 SXT tokens were made eligible for stLINK, wstLINK holders, node operators, and SDL stakers.

In Season 1, the DAO accumulated 2,411,401,919 Cubes, which were strategically allocated across $FOLKS, $SXT, $TRUF, $BKN, and $XSWAP. These developments set the stage for a year focused not just on growth, but on usability and reach.

While 2025 focused on strengthening foundations, including liquidity, revenue, governance, and multi-chain reach, 2026 is centered on accessibility, composability, and protocol maturity.

A newly developed and audited Migration feature will bridge the native Chainlink Community Pool and the stake.link protocol. This tool enables users to initiate unbonding from the native pool and atomically re-stake with stake.link. It preserves security contributions while unlocking immediate liquidity through stLINK, higher yields, and broader DeFi opportunities.

As the SDL LST Index continues to evolve, research into ETH liquid staking and additional high-value LSTs is underway. This expansion is closely tied to the broader Chainlink Effect, where increased adoption drives oracle usage, fee generation, and a powerful economic flywheel. By positioning stake.link at the center of this flywheel, the protocol enables asset issuers to gain instant composability, visibility, and adoption while benefiting from Chainlink’s security and infrastructure.

The community remains the true engine of the SDL protocol.

stake.link is a decentralized, collaborative effort powered by people across many roles and time zones. node operators securing the network, stakers committing capital, contributors building and testing, community educators sharing knowledge, security service providers strengthening resilience, and community members engaging in governance discussions and voting.

Behind every metric in this report are these individual actions, taken day after day, that collectively shape the protocol’s resilience and direction. Thank you to everyone who contributed time, insight, and trust throughout 2025.
The next chapter is built together.