How Persistence Innovates through Liquid Staking and Re-staking to Impact the Cosmos Ecosystem

Persistence is one of the application chains in the Cosmos ecosystem that first enabled IBC, CosmWasm, and liquid staking modules. By continually deepening POS and liquid staking related products, it has built a complete liquid staking and re-staking architecture for the Cosmos ecosystem.

Recently, the Cosmos community voted to allocate 600,000 ATOM to pSTAKE to promote the growth of liquid staking. In return, pSTAKE will share 15% of the liquid staking revenue with the Cosmos Hub.

Overview of Persistence Ecosystem

According to official data, the total locked amount in 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 high interconnectivity. Currently, 74.7% of the network token XPRT is staked, with an annual yield of 16.7%. The network is jointly maintained by 6 nodes and 100 validators to ensure decentralization and security.

In the past 24 hours, the IBC trading volume of Persistence was $260,800, with a total of 4,955 transactions, of which 616 were IBC trades. There were 932 active addresses, and 86 active IBC addresses. The inflow of IBC funds continues to be higher than the outflow, reflecting that more and more value is flowing into Persistence and participating in stake.

Technical Foundation

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

Persistence connects 54 Cosmos application chains through the IBC protocol, enabling trustless communication, transfer, staking, and liquid staking of tokens, thus laying the ecological foundation for staking and liquid staking in the Cosmos ecosystem.

In addition, Persistence also utilizes Interchain Accounts (ICA) technology to achieve ICA Liquid Staking. ICA allows an account on one chain to perform operations on another chain, improving the efficiency and flexibility of staking and restaking.

liquid staking

Cosmos ecological stake mechanism

Liquid staking in the Cosmos ecosystem involves two main roles: validators and delegators. Staker ( and delegator ) can choose the validator node to delegate to. 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 on the chain.

If a validator exhibits negative behavior, the delegators of its node will also face corresponding penalties. For example, if a validator goes offline unexpectedly or maliciously, the delegator's stake will be reduced by 0.1%. If a validator engages in extremely malicious behavior ( such as double signing ), the stake will be reduced by 5%.

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

pSTAKE stake platform

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 proceed with staking. After the staking is completed, the pSTAKE protocol will issue the corresponding staking rights tokens to the user's wallet, such as stkATOM for staking ATOM.

pSTAKE has an automatic compound interest feature. Taking stkATOM as an example, the user's daily staking rewards (ATOM) will automatically enter the stake, continuing to earn rewards. This means that the amount of staking ATOM corresponding to each stkATOM will increase, 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.

Users need to wait 21-25 days when canceling the stake, or pay a 1% fee for a lightning unstake. When retrieving the stake, the corresponding stk assets will be destroyed.

Currently, pSTAKE supports five tokens: ATOM from Cosmos Hub, OSMO from the Osmosis chain, DYDX from the dYdX chain, STARS from Stargaze, and HUAHUA from Chihuahua, as well as those minted on the Persistence chain. When users stake native chain tokens, they need to cross-chain the assets to the Persistence chain via IBC, and then invoke the liquid staking module of the Persistence chain. Therefore, regardless of which chain's assets are being staked, a small amount of XPRT is required as gas fees.

stake derivatives

Persistence and the Cosmos ecosystem have launched various stk asset derivatives. For example, stkATOM can be exchanged for ATOM directly on the DEX without the need to unstake or pay additional fees. The stk assets can also be combined with native assets to add liquidity in the DEX, resulting in higher yields. For instance, in Dexter under Persistence, the expected annualized yield for stkDYDX + DYDX can reach as high as 45.82%.

XPRT stake

As an independent blockchain, Persistence also requires staking to enhance network security. Users can easily stake XPRT in the Persistence official site or Keplr wallet, selecting the desired validator node for staking.

Stake Security Assurance

Persistence and pSTAKE are both open-source programs, with pSTAKE developed by 72 developers, and the last code submission was 2 days ago. In addition, Persistence collaborates with multiple security agencies to provide comprehensive support for staking and liquid staking security, including Halborn, PeckShield, Certora, Hexens, Notional, Trail of Bits, Solidified, ConsenSys Diligence, Oak Security, Immunefi, and Forta.

Re-staking Innovation

The Persistence team is building Restaking infrastructure in Cosmos, allowing users to deposit liquid staking tokens ( such as stkATOM, stTIA, and stkDYDX) into Persistence through 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, LP tokens, and more.

Re-stake Alliance

The re-staking module of Persistence is developed based on the Alliance module, which allows 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 after staking the corresponding assets, and can receive re-staking rewards and XPRT.

Re-staking alliance shares staking rewards, and stakers of various assets distribute rewards according to asset weight. The reward weight for XRPT is 1, while the reward weights for other assets are determined and adjusted through decentralized governance. This mechanism forms a community of interest for re-staked assets, which helps to enhance the security and decentralization of the Cosmos ecosystem.

Re-staking revenue source

After the tokens used by users for re-staking are locked, the native token (XPRT) is minted proportionally and enters the staking module to stake as a delegator to validators. The staking rewards obtained are distributed to stakers such as stkATOM and stTIA. This is not only the source of re-staking rewards for Persistence 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 within the Cosmos ecosystem. Through innovative re-staking solutions, Persistence establishes an economic alliance for re-stakers, forming a cross-chain community of shared interests, enhancing mutual security guarantees, and increasing the level of decentralization of the Cosmos ecosystem. As these innovations continue to deepen, Persistence's influence within the Cosmos ecosystem is gradually growing, bringing higher security, asset liquidity, and participation to the entire ecosystem.