Measuring the decentralisation of DeFi development: An empirical analysis of contributor distribution in Lido

Decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols often claim to implement decentralised governance via mechanisms such as decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), yet the structure of their development processes is rarely examined in detail. This study presents an in-depth case analysis of the development activity distribution in Lido, a prominent DeFi liquid staking protocol. We analyse 6741 human-generated GitHub actions recorded from September 2020 to February 2025. Using standard inequality metrics – Gini coefficient and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index – alongside contributors’ interaction network and core–periphery modelling, we find that development activity is highly concentrated. Overall, the weighted Gini coefficient reaches 0.82 and the most active contributor alone accounts for 24% of the total activity. Despite an even split between core and peripheral contributors, the core group accounts for 98.1% of all weighted development actions. The temporal analysis shows an increase in concentration over time, with the Gini coefficient rising from 0.686 in the bootstrap phase to 0.817 in the maturity phase. The contributors’ interaction network analysis reveals a hub-and-spoke structure with high centralisation in communication flows. While a case study of a single protocol, Lido represents a critical test of decentralisation claims given its prominence, maturity, and DAO governance structure. These findings demonstrate that open-source DeFi development can exhibit highly concentrated control patterns despite decentralised governance mechanisms, revealing a persistent gap between governance and operational decentralisation.