Web3 Liquid Staking Pioneer: The Innovative Journey of Persistence Labs

Persistence Labs is one of the pioneers in the Cosmos ecosystem, dedicated to injecting vitality into digital assets by providing services such as liquid staking. The team's Chief Strategy Officer, Mikhil, shared the company's development journey and future vision.

Mikhil entered the crypto industry in 2019, attracted by the potential of the Cosmos ecosystem and the vision of bringing real assets onto the chain. Persistence chose to root itself in the Cosmos ecosystem because of the significant differences it saw compared to Ethereum. Cosmos is more like a multiverse, connecting multiple blockchains through the inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol, allowing each application to build on its own chain without competing for block space. The IBC protocol also allows users to transfer assets across Cosmos chains in a trustless manner, without the need to lock assets like traditional cross-chain bridges.

The core reason for Persistence to choose to build application chains is to capture more value and achieve a high degree of customization. Taking dydx as an example, after migrating from Ethereum to the Cosmos tech stack, MEV profits can flow to dydx token holders instead of Layer 1 participants. In addition, application chains grant project teams complete control over the operating rules and profit distribution of the chain.

Persistence keenly identified the lack of liquidity in the Cosmos ecosystem and launched the liquid staking product pSTAKE as a solution. Users can stake Atom to receive the liquidity token stkAtom, allowing them to earn staking rewards while participating in DeFi activities, greatly enhancing the liquidity and utilization efficiency of Atom.

Compared to competitors, Persistence's advantages include: first-mover advantage, high security, excellent user experience, and emphasis on decentralization. Currently, pSTAKE has more than 60 validators, which is twice that of its competitors, and is continuously exploring better validator selection mechanisms.

In terms of security, Persistence has invested significant resources into security audits and operates a bug bounty program to ensure product safety. In the future, the team will focus on supporting more Cosmos applications in collaboration with pSTAKE and Dexter, enhancing user experience, and educating users to shift from traditional staking to liquid staking.

Persistence Labs believes that liquidity tokens will become the foundational assets of DeFi, and liquid staking will drive the next wave of development in DeFi. The team welcomes projects with a shared vision to build applications on the Persistence Chain and jointly promote industry development.