A crypto staking ratio divides a defined staked balance by a stated supply measure. It does not reveal how much native token can trade immediately. Liquid staking receipts can move while their backing stays staked, and tokens waiting to exit may remain unavailable. To compare staking with liquid supply, reconcile native tokens, receipt claims and withdrawal states at the same timestamp without counting the same backing twice.
Specify the numerator and denominator
Start with the asset, chain, observation time and formula. “Forty percent staked” is incomplete until you know which balances count as staked and which supply appears below the division line.
A numerator might measure active effective stake, actual validator balances, or funds deposited into staking arrangements. Those boundaries can differ. For example, Glassnode's ETH Percent Supply Macro Distribution methodology divides the active validator set's aggregate effective balance by circulating supply. Its smart-contract-held supply measure also includes staked ETH, so those two plotted shares overlap. Adding them would not produce a valid allocation.
The denominator needs equal care:
- Total supply: issued native tokens after the stated treatment of burns.
- Circulating supply: the selected provider's classification of public supply.
Calculate transfer availability separately using explicit custody, transfer and withdrawal conditions. Treating that available balance as interchangeable with total or circulating supply would change the question again.
Circulating supply is an estimate with rules, not a promise of immediate sale. CoinGecko's supply methodology excludes categories including vested tokens and certain project-held balances. That generic definition alone does not establish how a particular staking position is treated. CoinMarketCap's supply documentation explicitly assesses masternode and staking holdings case by case, considering distribution, ownership and lockup periods.
Check the actual asset's classification before subtracting stake from circulating supply. Otherwise you may remove tokens that the denominator already excluded. A ratio using total supply and one using circulating supply can both be correctly calculated while answering different questions.
Reconcile a hypothetical 100-million-token supply
Consider invented Token Q. At one snapshot, its native supply is exactly 100 million Q. Assume no burns, rewards, fees, new issuance or other balances during the example.
The five rows below are mutually exclusive native-token locations. The two million pending tokens have already left active staking but have not completed settlement into ordinary transferable balances. No other transfer or custody restrictions apply to the final row.
| Native Q category | Million Q | Included in active stake? | Transferable as native Q now? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vested foundation allocation | 12 | No | No |
| Direct active stake | 24 | Yes | No |
| Active stake behind a liquid staking pool | 14 | Yes | No |
| Exited, awaiting settlement | 2 | No | No |
| Unconstrained native holdings | 48 | No | Yes |
| Total | 100 | 38 million | 48 million |
For this illustration only, define circulating supply as total supply less the 12 million vested tokens. That leaves 88 million Q, including active stake and the pending exits. This is an invented classification, not an assertion about either provider's policy for a real asset.
Two ratios follow:
- Active stake divided by total supply is
38 / 100 = 38%. - Active stake divided by this circulating supply is
38 / 88 = 43.18%, rounded.
Nothing changed on the network between those calculations. Only the denominator changed.
Subtracting active stake from circulating supply gives 88 − 38 = 50 million Q. Calling all 50 million “liquid” would include the two million still awaiting settlement. Under the example's conditions, unconstrained native holdings are 88 − 38 − 2 = 48 million Q.
Even 48 million is an inventory classification. It does not establish how much holders want to sell, whether balances are deposited at accessible venues, or what prices would clear those sales. A supply ledger cannot replace a size-specific execution quote.
The distinction from yield is also useful. A staking percentage measures a supply share under stated rules; a reward rate measures token growth over time. Use the staking APR versus APY ledger for rewards, compounding and deductions rather than reading an ownership or liquidity conclusion into an advertised annual rate.
Count receipt tokens through their underlying claim
Liquid staking changes which claims can move. It does not require the native backing to leave staking whenever a receipt changes hands.
Ethereum's pooled staking documentation describes transferable liquid staking tokens representing staked ETH while the underlying ETH remains on the consensus layer. A holder can transfer that representation without making the backing ordinary wallet ETH.
Return to Token Q. Assume its pool's 14 million active Q back exactly 14 million rQ receipts, with one Q of backing per rQ. There are no buffers, accrued rewards, borrowing or other pool assets in this simplified model.
Eight million rQ are held directly by end holders. The other six million rQ sit inside a wrapper contract, which has issued five million wrQ. At the snapshot, each wrQ unwraps into 1.2 rQ.
The end-holder claim calculation is:
8 million rQ + 5 million wrQ × 1.2 = 14 million Q-equivalent claims
Adding the complete 14 million rQ supply to the wrapped claims would instead report 20 million Q-equivalent claims. That double-counts the six million rQ already locked behind wrQ. Adding five million raw wrQ units to fourteen million rQ units would also mix different denominations.
This is a real accounting pattern, although the example's tokens and rate are invented. Lido's wstETH contract documentation describes a wrapper that accepts stETH and issues wstETH; unwrapping burns wstETH and returns the locked stETH. Its token balance does not rebase, while its conversion value in stETH changes. Use the relevant snapshot conversion rate rather than assuming one wrapped unit equals one underlying unit.
In the toy ledger, 48 million unconstrained native Q plus 14 million Q-equivalent end-holder receipts gives 62 million units represented by those two kinds of transferable holdings. This is a reporting subtotal of different instruments and exit conditions, not 62 million spendable Q. Selling a receipt transfers the claim to a buyer; redeeming it follows the provider's process. Neither its existence nor its transfer turns the backing Q into ordinary native holdings.
A further lending receipt or bridged representation would require another mapping, including its restrictions. The wrapped token and bridge risk guide explains how to trace those additional dependencies. Keep the chain and contract identifiers beside every layer so similarly named balances do not become separate reserves by accident.
Follow an exit through its actual states
“Unstaking” can name several different events. A provider request, a validator exit, funds reserved for settlement and receipt in a wallet need separate records.
Ethereum's withdrawal documentation describes transfers from consensus-layer validator accounts to the execution layer. It also directs pool users to their provider's rules. A pooled redemption can have its own process around those network events.
Lido provides one specific implementation. Its WithdrawalQueueERC721 documentation describes these states:
| State | Representation and native availability |
|---|---|
| Before request | Holder has stETH; no withdrawal payment has occurred |
| Request submitted | stETH is locked in the queue; holder receives an unstETH NFT |
| Request finalized | Corresponding locked stETH is burned; ETH is reserved and claimable |
| Claim completed | Reserved ETH transfers to the recipient; the NFT is burned |
The request NFT and the tokens backing the request are not additional economic reserves to add together. Nor does requesting a withdrawal prove that the holder has received ETH.
Lido can use available buffer ETH to fulfill withdrawals, so a request does not identify a one-to-one validator exit. Its finalization rules consider available funds and timing, among other conditions. Do not turn these states into a fixed withdrawal deadline or apply them to every staking provider.
In the separate Token Q example, settling the two million already-pending Q increases unconstrained native holdings from 48 million to 50 million. Active stake stays at 38 million and the active-stake-to-total ratio stays at 38%. Native availability changed without another decline in that ratio.
Conversely, selling a liquid staking receipt can change its owner while leaving the active stake unchanged. The two measures can move independently because they track different events.
Test the liquidity claim before drawing a market conclusion
A transferable receipt has two potential exit questions: what the protocol will redeem under its rules, and what another trader will pay for it now. Ethereum's pooled staking documentation distinguishes those routes and notes that secondary-market prices can diverge from backing value. Neither route guarantees a particular execution price for a large position.
A high staking ratio therefore cannot, by itself, prove a coming supply shortage or price increase. You would still need evidence about holder behavior, redemption conditions, available trading routes and demand. A rise in receipt trading can reflect transfers of an existing claim rather than new native-token issuance or unstaking.
The token velocity measurement guide addresses a related boundary: repeated movement does not create additional supply. Treat a receipt's activity separately from the native asset's movement.
The stablecoin redemption and liquidity guide develops another useful distinction between a documented redemption route and market liquidity. The asset structures differ, but the same reporting discipline applies: a claim, an executable sale and completed native receipt are separate observations.
Build a dated supply-and-claims worksheet
For the next staking statistic you review, fill out these fields before comparing it with another dashboard:
- Identity and time: chain, native asset, receipt contracts, block or epoch, and provider observation time.
- Staking numerator: active effective balance, actual balance, deposits or another stated measure; treatment of activation and exit states.
- Supply denominator: total or circulating, provider, exclusions, and whether any excluded balances overlap the staking numerator.
- Native inventory: mutually exclusive balances for active stake, pending deposits, pending withdrawals, restricted allocations and unconstrained tokens.
- Claim conversion: directly held receipts, receipts locked behind wrappers, conversion rates and the backing already counted elsewhere.
- Exit evidence: request identifier, current state, claimability, completed receipt and a separate dated market quote if sale proceeds matter.
Mark missing information as unknown. Do not force categories to sum to supply when you have not established that they are mutually exclusive. If two dashboards disagree, reproduce each formula using its own definitions before treating either as a data error.
Finish with three separate numbers: the documented staking ratio, the native balance passing your availability rules, and the end-holder receipt claims mapped to that same underlying. Attach the timestamp and first unresolved exit condition to each. That makes the next comparison reproducible without calling every transferable claim new liquid supply.