stETH vs ETH Ratio: Why It Is 1:1 and When It Slips

There are two stETH to ETH ratios and people mix them up constantly. The protocol ratio is 1:1 - deposit one ETH with Lido, get one stETH; burn one stETH, get one ETH back out of the withdrawal queue. The market ratio is whatever buyers are paying on an exchange right now, and it sits a hair under 1:1 most of the time. Think of a cheque you can cash at face value on Friday: the bank will always pay the full amount, but a stranger buying it off you today will want a few pennies for the wait.

Why doesn't stETH just get more expensive?

Because the rewards arrive as more tokens, not a higher price. stETH rebases: once a day the oracle reports what the validators earned and every balance is nudged upward, so 10 stETH becomes 10.0006 stETH with no transaction to click on. The target is always one ETH per stETH, and the growth shows up in the quantity. If you are checking whether you are being paid, look at the balance, not the chart.

So why does wstETH show a ratio above one?

Because wstETH is built the other way round. Its balance never moves and its value in stETH climbs instead, so the published rate - one wstETH is worth something like 1.2 stETH and rising - is simply accumulated rewards. It only ever goes up. That number is not a premium you are overpaying, and it is not comparable to the stETH ratio at all.

When does the market ratio slip?

When the exit queue gets long or somebody has to sell in a hurry. Ethereum processes validator exits at a fixed pace, so a rush for the door turns into a wait - in September 2025 the network-wide queue stretched past 46 days after one large operator pulled all of its validators. A longer wait is worth more of a discount, and buyers price it in. The deepest slip on record came in June 2022, around 0.94 ETH, back when Lido withdrawals did not exist and selling was the only exit.

Which number should you watch? The protocol one, if you intend to redeem. The market one, if you have borrowed against stETH - that is the price your lender uses. Next: what a depeg actually means and how wstETH works.