This blog recaps pSTAKE Finance’s liquid staking journey since late 2020 and outlines the protocol’s roadmap and goals for 2024.
Introduction to pSTAKE Finance
pSTAKE Finance is a premier multi-chain Liquid Staking Protocol backed by Binance Labs, Defiance Capital, and Coinbase Ventures. Currently, pSTAKE issues Liquid Staked Tokens (LSTs) for the BNB Chain and leading Cosmos app chains such as the Cosmos Hub (ATOM), Osmosis (OSMO), and dYdX (DYDX).
pSTAKE’s core contributors involve some of the earliest Cosmos community members who have actively contributed to the Cosmos Ecosystem for 4+ years and saw a massive opportunity for liquid staking in Cosmos.
pSTAKE pioneered liquid staking in Cosmos by introducing ERC-20 liquid staked ATOM (stkATOM) and XPRT (stkXPRT) on Ethereum in 2021. This v1 implementation garnered more than $60M in TVL on Ethereum. Pertaining to scaling issues, the v1 was deprecated for a more robust, fully decentralized, and permissionless v2 version that went live on the Persistence Core-1 chain in January 2023.
Alongside Cosmos, pSTAKE is a prominent liquid staking protocol on the BNB Chain, one of the most active and adopted crypto ecosystems. BNB holders can deposit their tokens on pSTAKE to receive stkBNB, a liquid staked token (LST) for BNB. stkBNB aims to supercharge the BNB DeFi by allowing users to earn staking rewards and DeFi yields in close collaboration with Binance Labs.
As the world becomes full of secure and interoperable PoS blockchains with flourishing DeFi, staking will become the fixed income of crypto. The bull case for sovereign and modular app chains is the opportunity for pSTAKE to Liquid Stake Everything (ATOM, OSMO, DYDX, TIA, DYM, and beyond).
Focus on Building, Scaling, and Growing liquid staking
2021 – Initial Product Rollout
2022 and 2023 – Heads-down Building
2024 – Traction and Security
Since its inception, pSTAKE has always focused on shipping high-quality, secure liquid staking solutions for the leading chains in crypto.
Through 2022 and 2023, protocol contributors, through PSTAKE governance, have shipped stkBNB, stkATOM, and stkOSMO. Protocol improvements driven by market demand have made pSTAKE the most preferred liquid staking provider for chains that want to achieve decentralization. Today, pSTAKE can onboard any app chain (that has the Cosmos Interchain Accounts enabled) in less than a week, making Cosmos liquid staking highly scalable.
As of writing this, pSTAKE boasts a TVL (Total Value Locked) of $16M+ spread across ATOM, BNB, OSMO, and DYDX.
Notably, this feat has been achieved by spending less than 3.5% of the protocol’s total token supply through PSTAKE governance. As per the 2021 tokenomics, 26% of the total token supply is reserved for pSTAKE Incentivization.
Such a conservative incentivization (token spend) approach throughout pSTAKE’s early days enables the protocol to chase exponential hyper-growth today. Through governance, all PSTAKE token holders have been instrumental in shaping this approach and giving the protocol a vast war chest to spend tokens on sustainable growth.
pSTAKE is also one of the very few protocols in Cosmos that the Cosmos Hub backs. In 2023, the Cosmos Hub deployed 600k ATOM into pSTAKE to liquid stake and provide stkATOM liquidity on DEXs in Cosmos. This liquidity deal with the Cosmos Hub gives pSTAKE a colossal boost and aligns ATOM holders and the Cosmos Hub with pSTAKE.
In the success of ATOM lies the success of pSTAKE, and pSTAKE’s success directly adds value to the Cosmos Hub. Win-win.
pSTAKE Finance Liquid Staking in 2024
“The leading liquid staking protocol for the Cosmos Ecosystem and BNB Chain.”
The goal for pSTAKE Finance in 2024 is clear. To become the most prominent liquid staking provider by TVL for the Cosmos Ecosystem and BNB Chain.
pSTAKE can achieve this with three core objectives.
Increase traction on existing pSTAKE liquid staking products
Currently, stkTokens have ~$12M+ liquidity and are integrated with 15+ leading DeFi protocols to meet the actual premise of liquid staking–Staking AND DeFi.
| stkToken | Utility |
| stkATOM | – Provide liquidity on Dexter, Astroport (Neutron), Shade Protocol, Osmosis, or Crescent – Borrow other tokens on Umee – Open a DeFi lease on Nolus – Mint decentralized stablecoin SILK on Shade Protocol |
| stkOSMO | – Provide liquidity on Osmosis – Coming soon: Mars, Levana, Umee, Nolus, Agoric |
| stkBNB | – Provide liquidity on Thena or PancakeSwap – Borrow other tokens on Venus – Deposit stkBNB Thena LP into Beefy Vault |
| stkDYDX | – Provide liquidity on Dexter – Coming soon: Mars, Levana, Umee, Nolus, Agoric |
In 2024, the focus for existing stkTokens will be to:
- Deepen Liquidity on DEXs with increased incentivization power
- Integrate everywhere in DeFi with more exciting partnerships
- Improve resilience with more security audits
Expand liquid staking to new Cosmos chains
Today, Cosmos is a truly unique place to be. It has become home to many exciting chains like Celestia and Dymension. Further, Every new application that launches as its own chain (eg. dYdX) presents a unique opportunity for pSTAKE to capture a significant share of its liquid staking market.
As of today, the combined market cap for some of the major Cosmos Ecosystem chains is ~$90B (including the BNB chain, which is more than ~70% of the total Cosmos market capitalization). While this number may already sound enormous, the Cosmos (and pSTAKE’s liquid staking) party is just getting started.
The new era blockchains, namely Initia, Berachain, Saga, Namada, and Babylon, have one thing in common: Cosmos. All of them will flourish in Cosmos. All of them can have secure, decentralized liquid staking solutions powered by pSTAKE, putting the protocol in an advantageous position. Exponential growth of Cosmos = Possible exponential growth of pSTAKE liquid staking.
pSTAKE is presented with a unique opportunity to become one of the most exciting DeFi protocols in the industry. pSTAKE aims to have 10% of the total supply liquid staked through its platform for existing assets such as ATOM, OSMO, and DYDX.
Identify and explore liquid staking market demands and opportunities
pSTAKE contributors are always on the lookout for the next big thing that can propel liquid staking adoption.
Some of the biggest opportunities may lie within the current trends: Restaking, BTC Staking, LRTfi, and more.
While the market has its own way of conveying such developments, having a constant eye can lead to successful opportunities being grabbed strongly with both hands.
Conclusion
Liquid Staking has grown rapidly on Ethereum. As contributors to pSTAKE Finance, we firmly believe that the inflection point and parabolic adoption of Cosmos Liquid Staking is just around the corner.
Being one of the earliest and most reputable Cosmos Liquid Staking providers, pSTAKE Finance is uniquely positioned to become a leader in the liquid staking landscape.
One can say the same about the BNB Chain. Although still in its nascent stages today, the BNB liquid staking landscape is destined to take center stage. With pSTAKE’s early penetration into the market, it (stkBNB) can play a pivotal role in helping grow DeFi in the BNB Chain ecosystem.
As a closing note, the goal for pSTAKE in 2024 is to become the largest liquid staking provider for the Cosmos Ecosystem and cement its place as a DeFi behemoth.
