Persistence: Liquid Staking and Re-staking Innovations Driving the Development of the Cosmos Ecosystem

Persistence, as an important application chain in the Cosmos ecosystem, was the first to enable IBC, CosmWasm, and the liquid staking module (LSM). By deeply cultivating 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 pass an important proposal to allocate 600,000 ATOM to pSTAKE to promote the growth of liquid staking. According to the agreement, pSTAKE will share 15% of the liquid staking revenue with Cosmos Hub.

Persistence Ecosystem Overview

According to official data, the total locked value of the Persistence ecosystem ( TVL ) has reached 14.78 million USD, with an IBC trading volume of approximately 15 million USD in the past 30 days and an average transaction cost of less than 0.005 USD. This data reflects the important position and activity of Persistence in the Cosmos ecosystem.

The Persistence network has established 121 channels with 44 other regions, demonstrating its high interconnectedness within the Interchain network. Currently, 74.7% of the network tokens ($XPRT) are in a stake state, with an annualized yield of 16.7%. This high staking rate indicates that the network has strong 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 transaction volume of Persistence reached $260,800, with 4,955 transactions, including 616 IBC transactions. There are 932 active addresses and 86 IBC active addresses. Notably, the IBC inflow continues to exceed the outflow, 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. These DApps developed based on 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 through IBC, enabling trustless communication, transfer, staking, and re-staking of tokens, laying a solid foundation for staking and re-staking in the Cosmos ecosystem.

In addition, Persistence utilizes Interchain Accounts (ICA) to achieve ICA Liquid Staking. This feature allows an account on one chain to perform operations on another chain, greatly enhancing the efficiency and flexibility of staking and re-staking.

liquid staking

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

If a validator exhibits improper behavior, the delegator's stake deposit may be reduced. For example, if a validator unexpectedly or maliciously goes offline, it could result in a 0.1% reduction of the delegator's stake deposit; whereas extreme malicious actions such as double signing violations could lead to a 5% reduction of the stake deposit.

This mechanism prevents malicious behavior through economic incentives and potential penalties, with validators and delegators sharing responsibility to maintain network efficiency and security, while also earning corresponding token rewards.

pSTAKE stake

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

An important feature of pSTAKE is automatic compounding. Taking stkATOM as an example, the daily staking rewards (ATOM) for users are automatically staked to continue earning 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 to 25 days; they can also choose to pay a 1% fee to immediately release the stake. When retrieving the stake, the corresponding stk assets will be destroyed.

pSTAKE currently supports staking a variety of assets, including ATOM on Cosmos Hub, OSMO on Osmosis chain, DYDX on dYdX chain, STARS on Stargaze, HUAHUA on Chihuahua, and these 5 tokens minted on Persistence chain.

It is worth noting that regardless of which chain's assets are staked, users need to hold a certain amount of the base token $XPRT of the Persistence chain as GAS fees, even though the GAS fees of the Persistence chain are very low.

stake derivatives

Persistence and the Cosmos ecosystem have launched various stk asset derivative products. For example, in certain DEX products, users can directly exchange stkATOM for ATOM without the need to unstake or pay additional fees. Moreover, the combination of stk assets with native assets can also add liquidity in DEXs to achieve higher yields.

$XPRT stake

As an independent blockchain, Persistence also requires staking to enhance network security. Users can conveniently stake $XPRT on the Persistence official platform or in the Keplr wallet by simply selecting the Persistence network and choosing the validator node they wish to stake with.

stake security

Persistence and pSTAKE are both open-source programs, which is one of the important guarantees of their security. The pSTAKE program has 72 developers involved in its development, and the latest code submission was just two days ago.

In addition, 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 cryptocurrency security auditing firms, global security research and consulting companies, smart contract security auditing agencies, as well as leading DeFi bug bounty platforms.

Re-staking

The Persistence team is building Restaking infrastructure in Cosmos, allowing users to deposit liquid staking tokens into Persistence through platforms like pSTAKE. This enables users to restake their 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, etc. This module is developed based on the Alliance module, enabling assets to be staked from one blockchain to another, forming a mutually beneficial relationship.

Re-staking alliance shares staking rewards, and stakers of various assets distribute the rewards according to the asset's reward weight. This mechanism forms a community of interests with the re-staked assets, which helps to enhance the security and decentralization of the Cosmos ecosystem.

The source of income from re-staking comes from locking the tokens staked by users, minting native tokens proportionally, and staking these native tokens with validators to earn rewards. This process not only provides income for re-stakers but also further strengthens the security and Liquidity of the Cosmos ecosystem.

Summary

Persistence is gradually deepening its influence in the Cosmos ecosystem through its innovative liquid staking and re-staking solutions. It not only brings higher security, asset liquidity, and ecosystem participation to the ecosystem but also establishes a cross-chain community of interest through the re-staking alliance, enhancing mutual security and increasing the level of decentralization of the Cosmos ecosystem. As an important infrastructure provider in the Cosmos ecosystem, Persistence is making significant contributions to the development of the entire ecosystem.