Persistence: From liquid staking to the innovation of re-staking in the Cosmos ecosystem influencers

Persistence is one of the application chains in the Cosmos ecosystem that first enabled IBC, CosmWasm, and liquid staking modules. By continuously delving into products related to POS and liquid staking, this project has built a complete architecture for liquid staking and restaking within the Cosmos ecosystem.

On December 5, 2023, the Cosmos community voted to allocate 600,000 ATOM for the growth of liquid staking for pSTAKE. In return, pSTAKE will share 15% of the liquid staking revenue with Cosmos Hub.

Overview of the Persistence Ecosystem

According to official data, the total locked value of the Persistence ecosystem is (TVL), reaching 14.78 million USD, with an IBC trading volume of 15 million USD in the last 30 days and an average transaction cost of less than 0.005 USD.

The Map of Zones shows that Persistence has established 121 channel connections with 44 other zones in the Interchain network. This indicates that it is a highly interconnected node, capable of interacting with numerous other zones through multiple channels.

Currently, 74.7% of the network tokens ($XPRT) are in a staked status, such a high staking rate usually indicates that the network has high security and participation. The annualized yield for staking reaches 16.7%.

The infrastructure of Persistence consists of 6 nodes and 100 validators, collectively ensuring the decentralization and security of the network.

In the last 24 hours, the IBC trading volume of Persistence was $260,800. The total number of transactions was 4,955, with 616 IBC transactions. There were 932 active addresses and 86 active IBC addresses. Notably, the IBC inflow has consistently been higher than the outflow, which may indicate that more and more value is flowing into Persistence and participating in staking.

Technical Support

Persistence supports the CosmWasm framework, allowing developers to write secure and interoperable smart contracts using the Rust language. DApps developed with the CosmWasm framework can operate across chains through IBC, providing convenient, secure, and efficient technical support for liquid staking.

Persistence connects to 54 Cosmos application chains via IBC, enabling trustless communication, transfer, staking, and re-staking of tokens, laying the ecological foundation for staking and re-staking in the Cosmos ecosystem.

The project also utilizes Interchain Accounts (ICA) to achieve ICA Liquid Staking. Interchain Accounts allow an account on one chain to perform operations on another chain, enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of staking and restaking.

liquid staking

In the Cosmos ecosystem, liquid staking includes two roles: validators and delegators.

Stakers (i.e., delegators) can choose the validator nodes they delegate to when staking. Validators run hardware and blockchain applications based on the Cosmos SDK, reaching consensus with other validators to propose and validate new blocks on the chain.

If a validator exhibits negative behavior, the delegators of the validator node will face corresponding penalties. For example, if the validator goes offline unexpectedly or maliciously, the staked deposit of the delegators will be reduced by 0.1%. If the validator engages in extremely malicious behavior, such as double signing, the staked deposit will be reduced by 5%.

The essence of liquid staking in the Cosmos ecosystem is to prevent malicious behavior through economic incentives and potential penalties. Validators and delegators share responsibilities in maintaining network efficiency and security while earning certain token rewards.

pSTAKE stake

pSTAKE provides a streamlined staking process for the Cosmos ecosystem. Users only need to select the tokens they wish to stake and the chain they are on to proceed with staking. Once the staking is complete, the pSTAKE protocol will issue the corresponding staking reward tokens to the user's wallet, for example, staking ATOM yields stkATOM.

automatic compound interest

Taking stkATOM as an example, the user's daily staking rewards are in ATOM, which will automatically enter staking to continue generating rewards. After the rewards enter staking, the staked ATOM corresponding to each stkATOM increases, allowing users to receive more ATOM when they unstake. Therefore, the user's staking rewards are reflected in the increase of the stkATOM/ATOM ratio.

Unstake

When users cancel their stake, they need to wait for 21 to 25 days; they can also pay a fee of 1% to immediately un-stake. When users retrieve their stake, the corresponding stk assets will be destroyed.

stake derivatives

Persistence and the Cosmos ecosystem have launched more stk asset derivatives. For example, on DEX products, stkATOM can be exchanged directly for ATOM without the need to unstake or pay additional fees. In addition, stk assets can also be combined with native assets to add liquidity on DEX, yielding higher returns.

$XPRT stake

As an independent blockchain, Persistence also requires staking to enhance network security. Users can conveniently stake $XPRT on the official Persistence site or in the Keplr wallet.

Stake Security

Persistence and pSTAKE are both open-source programs, which is an important guarantee of security. The pSTAKE program has 72 developers involved, with the most recent code submission being two days ago.

Persistence and pSTAKE collaborate with multiple security agencies to provide comprehensive support for the security of staking and liquid staking. These agencies include well-known blockchain and crypto security audit firms, global security research and consulting companies, smart contract security audit firms, DeFi vulnerability bounty platforms, and blockchain security real-time monitoring networks.

Re-stake

Persistence is building Restaking infrastructure in Cosmos, allowing users to deposit liquid staking tokens into Persistence via pSTAKE, Stride, and Quicksilver. This enables users to re-stake assets and secure additional chains while earning extra rewards.

The re-staking module of Persistence supports staking requests for various assets, including staking equity tokens, stablecoins, LP tokens, and more.

Re-staking Alliance

The re-staking module of Persistence is developed based on the Alliance module. Alliance is an open-source Cosmos SDK module that enables assets to be staked from one blockchain to another, utilizing inter-chain staking to create mutually beneficial relationships between blockchains.

Re-staking alliance shares staking rewards, where stakers of various assets distribute rewards according to the asset's reward weight. The reward weight for $XRPT is 1, while the reward weights for other assets are determined and adjusted through decentralized governance.

Re-staking yield source

The tokens used by users for re-staking will be locked and native tokens will be minted in proportion. These minted native tokens enter the staking module to be staked to validators in the role of delegators. The staking rewards obtained are distributed to various types of stakers.

This mechanism is not only a source of income for Persistence's re-staking but also further strengthens the security and liquidity of the Cosmos ecosystem.

Conclusion

Persistence provides an effective and secure economic infrastructure for liquid staking and re-staking in the Cosmos ecosystem. Through an innovative re-staking solution, Persistence has established an economic alliance for re-stakers, enhancing mutual security while increasing the degree of decentralization within the re-staking alliance of the Cosmos ecosystem. These efforts are gradually deepening Persistence's influence in the Cosmos ecosystem, bringing greater security, asset liquidity, and participation to the entire ecosystem.