How to Unstake Ethereum (ETH) on Lido

Step-By-Step Guide on How to Unstake ETH on Lido

This page is going to focus on how to unstake ETH via Lido. In case you haven't staked your $ETH yet, you can check out this guide on how to liquid stake your $ETH via Lido.

Let's jump straight into the tutorial. 👇

Step 1:Visit Lido and head to the “withdrawals” section

Step 2:You will then have an option between “Request” or “Claim”. Click on “Request”.

Step 3:Under “Request”, you will have two options to unstake your $stETH:

Use Lido to unstake at a 1:1 ratio, but has a waiting time of 6 days.
Use DEXs to unstake your $stETH within minutes, but at a 1:0.9996 ratio.

For example, if you had $1,000 worth of ETH staked, the difference between unstaking on Lido and swapping on a Dex is about $0.40

There is a tradeoff between urgency and quantity. If urgency is a priority, we suggest going through DEXs (like Milk Road Swap).

Step 4:Click on “Use DEXs” and choose a DEX of your choice. Out of the DEXs listed on the platform, we prefer 1inch. But if you want to use a DEX that has the lowest fees, we recommend Milk Road Swap.

Step 5:Once redirected to the 1inch website, input the amount of $stETH you wish to unstake and click on confirm.

You have now successfully traded your $stETH to $ETH, which is the equivalent of unstaking your $ETH.

Note:You will need to hold extra $ETH in your wallet to pay for gas fees for your transaction.

If you want to pay less gas, you can choose to stake on layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, etc.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

It depends on which route you take: • You can use Lido to unstake at a 1:1 ratio but has a waiting time of 6 days. • You can use a DEX like Milk Road Swap to unstake your $stETH within minutes but at a worse ratio.

Lido is generally a safe platform but like all crypto protocols, it doesn't come with risk. Do your own research before choosing your staking platform.

Yes, you will get exactly 1 ETH per 1 stETH if you unstake directly via Lido but this process has a longer waiting time. Your other option is to unstake via a DEX like Milk Road Swap which is instant but gives you a slightly lower exchange rate.

Yes, after requesting a withdrawal to unstake ETH on Lido, you need to manually claim your ETH from the "Claim" tab on Lido's interface once the withdrawal is processed (typically 1-5 days).