Stake DAO

Summary

Ketju does not approve Stake DAO: the name covers four different products, each with its own way to lose money and to withdraw, and one verdict cannot cover them all. Stake DAO is also not a discretionary vault that allocates across other vaults. The listing combines liquid lockers for governance tokens, boosted strategies for LP positions the user picks, lending against strategy collateral, and Votemarket. DefiLlama listed about $117.5 million across 10 networks. Neither that total nor the documentation ties one client holding to its own deposits on a named chain. Ketju gives the combined total no weight.

Review triggers
• Ketju will review one named locker, strategy or lending market on one chain only when its product-level TVL, exact underlying assets, every live contract, proxy admin, guardian, gauge, reward receiver, bridge and fee are mapped at one time
• Every chosen deployment must match an audit we read with resolved findings, plus 12 months of product-level history of pauses, losses, oracle events, liquidations and failed withdrawals with no unexplained event
• A locker requires three sdToken sales of the proposed size, in separate months, within 100 basis points, and disclosed pool depth of at least 10 times the proposed size; the permanent underlying lock cannot count as native redemption
• A strategy requires both the receipt withdrawal and the underlying LP unwind within one business day and 100 basis points at the proposed size; a lending market also requires liquidation and bad-debt stress inside written limits
• Any guardian action that blocks withdrawals, any timelock bypass, an undisclosed authority change, a bridge dependency without an audited escape route, or reliance on combined Stake DAO TVL keeps the chosen product not approved

Ketju checks this memo every night and opens a review if its venues or files show a warning or a cited document changes. The first confirmation is due 2026-11-15.

Research

Products

An sdCRV holder relies on CRV that stays locked forever and on market liquidity for sdCRV. A strategy depositor still holds the LP risk of Curve, Balancer or another protocol. A borrower adds liquidation risk. A Votemarket participant sells or buys voting incentives.

How it works

Liquid lockers take a named governance token, lock it for the maximum term, keep relocking it, and mint a transferable sdToken. Strategies deposit a named LP token into the underlying protocol’s gauge and use Stake DAO’s voting power to boost rewards. Lending wraps a strategy position as collateral and adds oracle, borrowing and liquidation risk. Votemarket is a separate marketplace for vote incentives.

Chains

Stake DAO’s documentation says lockers and strategies run on several networks, and its contract registry is the source for each deployment. DefiLlama lists Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Fraxtal, OP Mainnet, Gnosis, Avalanche, Polygon, Linea and Sonic. That list does not mean every product or sdToken exists on every chain. A review must pick one product, token, contract and network.

Who controls it

Stake DAO’s control documentation says a ProtocolTimelock owns the ProtocolController and critical parameters. A governance multisig proposes changes, and anyone can execute them after at least 48 hours. A guardian can pause deposits or shut down a gauge at once, and an admin can change guardian roles. The page states that emergency actions do not block withdrawals. The new timelock improves the controls, but its delay, the guardian’s powers and the withdrawal promise must be checked for each deployment.

Contract map

The address registry lists the core Ethereum SDT, vlSDT and governance contracts, and Stake DAO syncs it from an off-chain registry. Ketju still lacks a fixed map, by product and chain, of every proxy admin, guardian, strategy, gauge, reward receiver and bridge. Each underlying Curve, Balancer or other gauge keeps its own governance, oracle, pool and token controls.

Losses and incidents

Stake DAO publishes an audit list for named locker, strategy, governance and Votemarket parts, and pages on outside reviews and its bug bounty. The list shows that reviews took place. It does not show that the deployed code Ketju would choose was in scope, or that every finding was fixed. No primary page we cite gives a full history of incidents by product, covering core contracts, gauges, bridges, reward tokens, oracles, liquidation losses and failed withdrawals. We do not claim Stake DAO has never had an incident. A review would need an on-chain history of losses and pauses for the chosen product and each dependency.

Withdrawals

A liquid-locker deposit cannot be undone: the governance token stays locked for the maximum term and keeps relocking. Stake DAO says a holder sells the sdToken on a DEX, at a rate that moves with demand. Pool depth and discount decide what the holder gets, whatever the protocol’s total deposits. A strategy withdrawal returns the chosen LP position. The investor must then remove liquidity from the underlying pool and bear its inventory and slippage. A lending market can liquidate the strategy collateral before either withdrawal. The timelock page states that withdrawals stay open during a guardian pause or shutdown. Ketju would test that claim on the chosen live contracts, bridge and gauge.

Comparison

For sdCRV, the plain alternative is veCRV held directly. veCRV gives up transferability for a known Curve lock. sdCRV adds Stake DAO contracts and a market discount in exchange for a tradable receipt and passed-through votes. For a boosted Curve LP strategy, Convex is the aggregator alternative and staking in the Curve gauge directly is the alternative with no wrapper. All three carry the same LP inventory risk. For borrowing, supplying to Aave V3 directly is simpler than borrowing against a boosted LP wrapper. Stake DAO may compete on reward timing, voting power and fees. Ketju cannot compare them until it measures one market’s fees, tested withdrawal and authority map on the same date.

Sources

Each claim above comes from one of these sources. Where Ketju could not verify a number, the memo states that.

• Stake DAO current product overview · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: liquid lockers, strategies, lending, Votemarket, vlSDT governance
• Stake DAO liquid-locker design · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: maximum-duration continuous relock, sdToken issuance, DEX-only locker exit, floating sdToken exchange rate, cross-chain claim
• Stake DAO strategy design · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: user-selected LP gauge, boosted reward mechanism, permissionless harvest, reward timing, Convex comparison
• Stake DAO protocol timelock · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: 48-hour minimum delay, proposer and executor roles, guardian pause and shutdown, admin role, withdrawal availability claim
• Stake DAO live contract-address registry · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: product-by-chain address source, SDT and vlSDT contracts, governance address, off-chain registry synchronization
• Stake DAO security-audit inventory · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: audit reports, component scope, review providers, report dates
• Stake DAO locker rewards and fees · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: locker-specific variable fees, performance-fee basis, reward sources, liquidity incentives
• Stake DAO Votemarket v2 white paper · primary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: vote-incentive product boundary, campaign mechanism, reward distribution, Votemarket audit claim
• DefiLlama: Stake DAO protocol data, read 2026-08-14 · secondary · accessed 2026-08-15
  Supports: aggregate survey TVL, reported chain distribution, protocol category, survey timestamp

The asset and the chain

This memo covers the protocol. A position also holds an asset and settles on a chain. Whichever of the three holds the most power over the position decides who can freeze it. These tables describe control and do not judge quality.