These days I've been looking at LST and re-staking again, and the more I look, the more it seems like "the returns aren't just falling from the sky." Basically, there are two main parts: one is the normal interest from the underlying staking, and the other is you taking the same security and using it to take on multiple jobs (lending, providing liquidity, collateralizing other protocols, etc.), with others paying you fees. It sounds pretty attractive, but the risk also comes from here: on-chain contract issues, liquidations, de-pegging, leveraged cascades, or even a glitch in some intermediate step—all of which could eventually impact the LST price.

What's even more amusing and a bit frustrating is that outside, people are still trying to explain everything by combining "ETF capital flows + US stock market risk appetite" with crypto price movements... When I pull up my spreadsheets, I feel it's better to honestly list the sources and risks in separate columns, so at least if I lose money, I know what I lost it on. Anyway, I’d rather have fewer returns now than bundle a bunch of unknowns as certainty.