Summary
Liquid staking tokens (LSTs) represent staked assets that can be traded and used in DeFi applications while still earning staking rewards, creating a new class of financial instruments. We present an empirical study of liquid staking tokens in automated market makers (AMMs), analyzing the behavior of LSTs across major DeX platforms including Uniswap, Curve, and Balancer. Using over 18 months of on-chain data, we characterize the liquidity, price stability, and yield characteristics of major LSTs (stETH, rETH, cbETH). We find that LST AMM pools exhibit unique risk profiles due to the staking yield component, and that their liquidity patterns differ significantly from standard ERC-20 token pairs. Our findings inform the design of AMM mechanisms tailored to LST pairs.