These past few days, I've been staring at the screen so long my eyes are sore, so I casually looked again at the LST/re-staking setup. To be honest, the returns aren't just falling from the sky: some come from the native rewards of the underlying staking, and a lot actually come from "people willing to pay for security/liquidity," plus early protocol subsidies and points as cold-start fuel. The problem is, subsidies will fade, and the demand for paid services will change; when the narrative cools down, it becomes very awkward.

The risks are also quite straightforward: after stacking layer upon layer, you might think you're holding "more stable interest," but in reality, you're bundling together smart contracts, liquidation/unstaking risks, re-staking penalties, and liquidity squeezes. Recently, some people have been interpreting ETF fund flows and US stock risk appetite alongside crypto prices—looking lively, but when external sentiment turns, the first to be forced to sell are often those positions with the highest stacking... Anyway, I now care more about whether we can survive the natural demand after subsidies are withdrawn, so that's where I stand for now.