Persistence: Innovators of Liquid Staking and Re-staking Affecting the Cosmos Ecosystem

Persistence, as an important application chain in the Cosmos ecosystem, has taken the lead in enabling IBC, CosmWasm, and the liquid staking module (LSM). By deeply engaging in POS and liquid staking related products, Persistence has built a complete liquid staking and re-staking architecture for the Cosmos ecosystem.

On December 5, 2023, the Cosmos community voted to allocate 600,000 ATOM to promote the development 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.

Data shows that Persistence has established 121 channels with 44 other regions in the Interchain network, demonstrating a high degree of interconnectivity. 74.7% of the $XPRT tokens in the network are in stake, with an annualized staking yield of 16.7%. This high staking rate typically indicates that the network has a higher level of security and participation.

The infrastructure of Persistence consists of 6 nodes and 100 validators, working together to maintain the decentralization and security of the network.

In the last 24 hours, the IBC trading volume of Persistence reached $260,800, with a total of 4,955 transactions, including 616 IBC transactions. There were 932 active addresses, with 86 active IBC addresses. It is worth noting that IBC inflows have consistently exceeded outflows, indicating that more and more value is flowing into Persistence and participating in stake.

Technical Support

Persistence supports the CosmWasm framework, allowing developers to write secure and interoperable smart contracts using the Rust language. Through IBC, Persistence connects 54 Cosmos application chains, enabling trustless communication, transfer, staking, and restaking of tokens.

In addition, Persistence utilizes Interchain Accounts (ICA) to achieve ICA Liquid Staking, enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of staking and restaking.

liquid staking

In the Cosmos ecosystem, liquid staking mainly involves two roles: validators and delegators. Delegators can choose the validator node to delegate their stake, while validators are responsible for running the hardware and blockchain applications based on the Cosmos SDK, reaching consensus with other validators, and proposing and validating new blocks on the chain.

To maintain network security, the Cosmos ecosystem has established a penalty mechanism. If a validator exhibits negative behavior, the stake deposits of their delegators may be reduced. For example, for accidental or malicious sustained offline behavior, the stake deposits of the delegators will be reduced by 0.1%; while for extremely malicious behavior, such as double-signing violations, the stake deposits will be reduced by 5%.

pSTAKE stake

pSTAKE provides a streamlined staking process for the Cosmos ecosystem. Users only need to select the token to stake and the chain they are on to complete the staking. After staking, users will receive the corresponding staking rights tokens, such as stkATOM for staking ATOM.

One important feature of pSTAKE is automatic compounding. Taking stkATOM as an example, the user's daily staking rewards (ATOM) will automatically enter staking, continuing to earn rewards. This means that the amount of staked ATOM corresponding to each stkATOM will gradually increase, allowing users to receive more ATOM when they unstake.

When users cancel their stake, they usually need to wait 21-25 days; they can also choose to pay a 1% fee for a lightning unstake. When reclaiming the stake, the corresponding stk assets will be destroyed.

Staking Derivatives

Persistence and the Cosmos ecosystem have launched more stk asset derivatives. For example, in certain DEX products, users can directly swap stkATOM for ATOM without the need to unstake or pay extra fees. In addition, the combination of stk assets and native assets can also add liquidity in 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 one of the important factors in ensuring security. The pSTAKE program has been developed by 72 developers, with the most recent code submission occurring two days ago.

In addition, Persistence and pSTAKE collaborate with several well-known security organizations to provide comprehensive support for the security of staking and liquid staking. These organizations include blockchain and crypto security audit firms such as Halborn, PeckShield, and Certora, as well as global security research and consulting companies like Trail of Bits.

Re-staking Innovation

Persistence is building the Restaking infrastructure in Cosmos, allowing users to deposit liquid staking tokens into Persistence via pSTAKE, Stride, and Quicksilver. This enables users to restake 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, and LP tokens.

Re-stake Alliance

The re-staking module of Persistence is developed based on the Alliance module, enabling assets to be staked from one blockchain to another, forming a mutually beneficial relationship. For example, stakers of $XPRT, stkATOM, and stkTIA can join the re-staking asset alliance of Persistence to earn re-staking rewards and $XPRT.

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

Source of re-staking income

The tokens used by users for re-staking will be locked and natively minted in proportion, with these minted native tokens entering the staking module to be staked to validators in the role of delegators. For example, the stkATOM and stTIA staked by users will be locked in the re-staking module on the Persistence chain and will be minted in proportion to $XPRT. These $XPRT will be staked to validators, and the staking rewards obtained will be distributed to stakers of stkATOM and stTIA.

Conclusion

Persistence provides an effective and secure economic infrastructure for liquid staking and re-staking within the Cosmos ecosystem. Through innovative re-staking solutions, Persistence has established an economic alliance for re-stakers, enhancing mutual security guarantees and increasing the level of decentralization in the re-staking alliance within the Cosmos ecosystem. This not only deepens Persistence's influence within the Cosmos ecosystem but also brings higher security, asset liquidity, and participation to the entire ecosystem.