2022 was the year pSTAKE truly shined, stealing the spotlight across the entire Persistence ecosystem. Our protocol initiated and helped spark greater adoption of liquid-staked assets, kicking off the journey to make Persistence the liquid staking hub of the future.
To wrap up the year and commemorate what we’ve achieved, we’re covering all key highlights and milestones for the pSTAKE platform. For a high-level recap, check out our TL;DR below.
TL;DR
- The PSTAKE token launch and airdrop drew in new users while bringing initial utility to the protocol
- Multiple stkASSET launches took place throughout the year across different blockchains, allowing users to earn on-chain staking rewards and participate in DeFi with popular crypto assets
- pSTAKE entered into multiple partnerships to provide greater opportunities to our users and expand reach to other communities
PSTAKE Token Launch & Airdrop
Starting in January, our team initiated a PSTAKE token sale on the CoinList platform to introduce it on the open market and distribute it to eligible participants on Ethereum. The sale added 20K new PSTAKE holders to our community, where participants purchased $10M worth of tokens (949K unique registrants – the largest amount ever on Coinlist).
After the sale concluded, we held a TGE (Token Generation Event) in February where 25% of the total PSTAKE airdrop supply was distributed to users. A retroactive token airdrop to key ecosystem stakeholders also took place, where 6% of the PSTAKE genesis supply was utilised to support multiple airdrops.
This was all followed by 3 CEX (centralised exchange) listings on Huobi, Kraken, and OKX to enable seamless and accessible trading for users. Later, the Persistence bridge was implemented to allow users to transfer ERC-20 PSTAKE from Ethereum to the Persistence Core-1 chain to provide liquidity to the PSTAKE/OSMO pool on Osmosis.
stkASSET Product Releases
Our liquid staking implementations (stkASSET launches) were the highlight of 2022, putting the fundamental building blocks in place to drive real-world use cases for liquid staking. ATOM & XPRT liquid staking was already available on pSTAKE but limited to Ethereum only.
In March 2022, pSTAKE reached its highest TVL of ~$60M+ across all stkASSETs, a huge milestone that displayed the true efforts of the team and strong community sentiment.
Below is a summary, in chronological order, of the stkASSETs we either fully deployed or began work on.
stkETH
First off to the races was our Ethereum liquid staking implementation (stkETH). In April 2022, we launched our testnet to lay the groundwork prior to “The Merge.”
Towards the end of May, the stkETH mainnet officially went live, allowing users to stake their ETH via the pSTAKE app. ETH liquid stakers benefitted from earning on-chain staking rewards while simultaneously being able to utilise stkETH to provide liquidity in the Uniswap pool.
2023 is going to exciting for stkETH, as we’re working on bringing the token to Cosmos in the most secure way possible.
stkBNB
In May, pSTAKE made a formal announcement of our partnership with Binance Labs to bring liquid staking to the BNB Chain ecosystem.
This milestone marked the beginning of the next phase in our journey, as we worked together over the next few months to build the framework and architecture for our BNB liquid staking solution (stkBNB) on pSTAKE.
During the month of July, the stkBNB smart contracts underwent audits from professional blockchain security firms and the testnet went live – shortly afterward in early August, the stkBNB mainnet launched and made a huge splash across the community, along with a bug bounty campaign (Immunefi) and on-chain tracking/monitoring (Forta Network).
Several BNB Chain DeFi integrations soon followed suit, which included PancakeSwap, Alpaca Finance, Beefy Finance, Wombat Exchange, OpenLeverage, and Midas Capital – all providing significant utility for stkBNB. Integrations with leading Web3 wallets, including with MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Math Wallet, were also added.
Other activities included campaigns with Galxe (Stake-to-Earn) and CoinMarketCap (BNB Boost), an airdrop in collaboration with Thena, and more.
stkATOM
Prior to 2022, stkATOM was already available as our ATOM liquid staking solution on the Ethereum network. While utility was limited for this asset, it was critical in proving the use case and functionality of our product.
As Cosmos DeFi began to ripen throughout the course of the year, along with massive developments with the Interchain suite, our team decided it was finally time to turn on the switch and build a stkATOM solution within the Cosmos ecosystem.
As of today, after scrutinous testing and security measures, we’re on the cusp of launching the stkATOM mainnet on the Persistence Core-1 Chain, allowing users to directly stake and mint their ATOM via pSTAKE to leverage stkATOM within Cosmos DeFi, all while strengthening and securing Cosmos Hub by staking ATOM on-chain. An in-detail update on the launch will be posted on https://www.forum.pstake.finance in the first week of January 2023.
Our new stkATOM product will lead the charge as we move into 2023, with several exciting DeFi integrations on the way to maximise utility and opportunities for our users.
Partnerships
Outside of DeFi integrations for our stkASSETs, pSTAKE developed key partnerships with other firms and projects to solidify our product offerings and provide greater opportunities to our community.
Below is a list and a brief description of our biggest collaborations this year:
- Citadel.One: pSTAKE integrated into Citadel.one with an extension, allowing users to leverage our liquid staking features directly within the platform’s app
- Blockchain Security Firms: In an ongoing effort to provide the very best security measures and ensure the safety of our stkASSET smart contracts, we partnered with the industry’s top blockchain security firms, including Halborn, Peckshield, and Certora. We also worked alongside Forta for on-chain tracking/monitoring and Immunefi for various bug bounty programs
- Anchorage Digital: We formed a partnership with Anchorage Digital, which provided institutions with the ability to securely hold custody of the PSTAKE token
Among others include wallet integrations for our stkASSETs, AMAs and Twitter Spaces with influencers, and more.
Looking Forward
With 2023 right around the corner, we couldn’t be more excited about what’s coming in the pipeline. As always, the pSTAKE team is fully committed to innovating and expanding upon our platform and stkASSET product line.
Join us on our journey to make liquid staking more seamless and accessible to everyone through pSTAKE.
Cheers to a wonderful and liquid new year!
About pSTAKE
pSTAKE is a liquid staking protocol that unlocks liquidity for your staked assets. With pSTAKE, you can securely stake your Proof-of-Stake (PoS) assets, participate in protocol improvements and security to earn staking rewards, and receive staked underlying representative tokens (stkASSETs) which can be used to explore additional yield opportunities across DeFi.
At present, pSTAKE supports Binance Chain (BNB), Cosmos (ATOM), Persistence (XPRT), and Ethereum (ETH) networks’ native tokens, with a view to support more chains and assets in the future (SOL, and AVAX).
