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

Rocket Pool, the third largest Ethereum liquid staking Protocol by Trade Value Lock (TVL), has joined forces with coinbase Ventures. Coinbase Ventures Will Join Rocket Pool’s Oracle, According to an Announcement on Rocket Pool’s Discord Channel dao (ODAO).

Rocket Pool is governed by two decentralized autonomous organizations (dao), ODAO is entrusted with the responsibility of running Rocket Pool’s ETH staking nodes and voting on Rocket Pool’s smart contract upgrades. ODAO members are compensated by Rocket Pool’s governance and utility token RPL.

Partnership tipped to boost Rocket Pool

Analysts believe the new partnership could help Rocket Pool gain ground on the current market leader in ETH liquid staking, lido, According to DeFi LlamaLido currently holds 4.88 million ETH tokens through its platform. Compare that to less than 360K via Rocket Pool.

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

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

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

This may not matter to crypto investors who take a more hardline view on decentralization. Rocket Pool is seen as the most decentralized provider of ETH liquid staking services in the crypto space, due to its decentralized governance structure.

Partnership in the making, with the recent collapse of FTX the latest reminder of the risks of crypto centralization, and with Ethereum to come Shanghai With the March upgrade expected to allow ETH withdrawals for the first time, Rocket Pool is tipped to do well in the coming months.

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

RPL reaches multi-month high

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

The news of the partnership with Coinbase Ventures has clearly boosted the price, while the aforementioned upcoming Ethereum upgrade that will unlock ETH withdrawals at the end of Q1 is also boosting the price.

If the broader crypto market rally continues on conditions that easing US inflationary pressures and slowing growth will help the US Federal Reserve cut interest rates later this year, RPL could return to its recent high. The path is likely to continue.

RPL’s technical outlook is certainly looking good. The cryptocurrency has remained in an aggressive uptrend since the beginning of the year and recently enjoyed a “golden cross”. This is where the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200DMA, an indicator that some traders view as bullish.