It’s time.
Time to refresh how we look at Finance and Cashflows. Time to refocus on the biggest, most universal asset class. Time for Bitcoin Yields.
With four years of liquid staking expertise and curated yield strategies, it’s time to refresh pSTAKE with a new identity to refocus on helping individuals and institutions put their BTC to work with Bitcoin Yields.
With the unveiling of our new logo and brand identity, let’s dive into pSTAKE’s liquid staking journey so far and what the future holds on the road to becoming the leading BTCfi protocol and making BTC yield generating for all.
The concentric circles are Gold’s alchemical symbol and the orange dash on top represents the Bitcoin-led new era of finance.
A Brief History of pSTAKE and (Liquid) Staking
Staking introduced decentralized coordination systems to the world for the first time. The biggest reason behind choosing to build liquid staking with pSTAKE in 2020 was the idea of decentralized cashflows. Capital put to work that generates yield for all participants.
pSTAKE was early in seeing the emergence of staking from the days of Tezos and Cosmos. pSTAKE has also adapted to Staking’s recent progression in Liquid Staking and Restaking.
In the ups and downs of this journey, two foundational principles have stayed ground:
- Sovereignty – the foundational ethos of a trustless world
- Fixed Income – yields that dictate finance
Staking is like Proof of Work of economic capital. It is the fixed income equivalent of TradFi in crypto that sets a base yield rate for assets.
After pioneering Cosmos liquid staking with the first-ever ATOM LST in 2021, pSTAKE experimented with other emerging ecosystems, such as BNB Chain.
Some of the shortfalls in these ecosystems posed an obstacle to overall growth and less impactful distribution:
- Adoption of liquid staking
- Liquidity
- Inertia for active DeFi usage
- Influx of new users
Building for Bitcoin
After reviewing pSTAKE’s extraordinary journey, mistakes made, milestones achieved, mechanism building and security expertise, and a lot of zooming out and soul searching, it’s clear that the road ahead for pSTAKE is as orange as it gets.
The opportunity to essentially replicate what pSTAKE has done phenomenally well in a niche like Cosmos for the biggest, more universal asset class is simply too big to not grab with two hands.
Bitcoin has withstood the test of time, hard forks, development, and crypto’s progression. In its 15+ years of existence, Bitcoin has always been a passive/speculative asset class. There were no BTC yields besides wBTC (wrapped Bitcoin), which had the same DeFi primitives (LPing, lending, etc.) as every other crypto token.
In a hyperinflationary world where market returns are becoming less volatile each cycle, Bitcoin yields are the need of the hour.
Bitcoin Development in the past few years has primarily been to:
- Making Bitcoin more programmable
Addressing the smart contract and scaling limitations to deploy on the Bitcoin Network - Making BTC more capital-efficient
Hyperfinancialization by building with BTC
Bitcoin Yields and BTC Liquid Staking
pSTAKE is in the camp of (and on a mission to) innovating to make Bitcoin a yield-generating asset and more capital-efficient for all.
Years of scaling efforts on the Bitcoin network and innovations like Babylon’s Trustless BTC Staking have resulted in multiple Bitcoin yield options today. Bitcoin Staking yields could essentially become the industry standard rate for BTC yields, with trillions of dollars sitting at the sidelines today. BTC Staking options/providers are only expected to increase parabolically from here.
While options are excellent for decentralization, they are not good for a seamless user experience due to the complexity of understanding yield sources and the risks involved.
The most significant pain point involved is secure access to reliable Bitcoin yields in as few clicks as possible.
pSTAKE Bitcoin Yields and Liquid Staking Roadmap
pSTAKE’s vision is simple: offering reliable Bitcoin yields to individuals and institutions in a secure, seamless, and easy-to-use manner.
- Fewer clicks, higher (reliable) BTC yields.
- Deposit BTC, rewards in BTC.
pSTAKE’s yield-generating Bitcoin token (yBTC) will offer auto-compounded BTC yields (cToken model like wstETH) through multiple yield strategies in the background, beginning with BTC Liquid Staking on Babylon.
| Timeline (tentative) | What happens? | What is it? | End User Action |
| July 2024 | pSTAKE v1 Launch | Capped launch of pSTAKE’s BTC yield and liquid staking solution on Babylon | Deposit BTC (present on the Bitcoin Network) into pSTAKE |
| July – August 2024 | pSTAKE Self-custody Launch | pSTAKE’s Bitcoin yield and liquid staking solution with full self-custody | Anyone can deposit BTC and access Bitcoin yields through pSTAKE while maintaining custody of their BTC |
| July – August 2024 | Wallet Support | Support for more leading Bitcoin wallets is added | Access pSTAKE through their preferred wallet of choice |
| July – December 2024 | pSTAKE Security Audits | Additional security audits of pSTAKE’s BTC yield and liquid staking solution are performed continuously | Improved security for users |
| August 2024 | pSTAKE SatDrop psats program launch | Launch of pSTAKE’s points program | Complete on-chain and off-chain tasks on pSTAKE to get psats |
| August 2024 | pSTAKE v2 Launch | Issuance of the yield-generating yBTC token on the Ethereum Network | Get yBTC token for BTC deposited into pSTAKE that is liquid and can be used in DeFi |
| August – December 2024 | pSTAKE (yBTC) Everywhere | Integration of yBTC into the broader DeFi landscape on Ethereum, L2s like Arbitrum, Optimis, Base, and Bitcoin L2s like Bitlayer, Merlin, BEVM, and more and other crypto ecosystems | Teleport yBTC to multiple crypto ecosystems from Ethereum in a single click for additional DeFi yields/points from pSTAKE’s partner protocols |
| September 2024 | pSTAKE v3 Launch | Yield on Bitcoin goes live as Babylon’s Trustless BTC Staking generates yield by shared security consumer app chains | yBTC token increases in value every day as Babylon’s BTC staking rewards are auto-compounded into BTC |
| October 2024 | PSTAKE Tokenomics Revamp | Community-led process for integrating the PSTAKE token into the protocol’s product | Participate in PSTAKE forum discussions and governance |
| December 2024 | pSTAKE v4 Launch | Additional reliable BTC yield sources besides Babylon are integrated into yBTC to offer diversified and higher Bitcoin yields | Deposit BTC to receive yBTC that generates yield in BTC through multiple sources |
Closing Thoughts
The BTCfi (DeFi for Bitcoin) landscape is nascent, with new projects emerging every other day. Much funding capital (especially pre-seed) is being allocated to completely new BTCfi projects.
pSTAKE has been relentlessly building in the liquid staking and yields space for 4+ years now. Over that time, pSTAKE has seen zero critical security incidents and has always strived to meet the needs of the crypto industry.
Until the emergence of Babylon’s Trustless Bitcoin Staking, there was no option to put the $1.5T+ Bitcoin sitting idle on the sidelines to any meaningful work.
While the true innovation comes from Babylon, pSTAKE’s expertise in building products with high security, seamless user experience, and novel mechanism design makes Bitcoin yields more accessible for all.
A few projects (such as Solv, Lorenzo, Lombard, BounceBit, etc.) share the same vision of having a yield-generating Bitcoin as us.
pSTAKE stands out in this large enough pie (the potential BTCfi market) with some key differences:
- Relentless focus on security
- 4+ years of experience building liquid staking yields for multiple ecosystems
- Unique product mechanism: deposit BTC, receive BTC with yBTC token auto-compounding
- Access to diversified Bitcoin yields in a single click
- $yBTC (yield-generating Bitcoin token) will be everywhere: Ethereum, L2s, Bitcoin L2s, etc.
The Bitcoin pie is enormous. BTCfi can be a positive sum game in which protocols can mutually integrate to source the highest yields securely for their respective users.
It’s time to make Bitcoin yield-generating securely and reliably for all.
About pSTAKE Finance
pSTAKE Finance is a Bitcoin Yield and Liquid Staking protocol, backed by Binance Labs.
With pSTAKE Finance, users can liquid stake BTC to get rewards from Babylon’s Trustless BTC staking for securing other app chains while maintaining their liquidity.
Accessing Bitcoin yields should not be complex, risky, or unsafe. With four years of liquid staking expertise and expert-curated yield strategies, pSTAKE Finance helps individuals and institutions put their BTC to work in BTCfi.
pSTAKE Finance has partnered with leading blockchain security firms, such as Halborn, Hexens, Oak Security, Immunefi, Forta, and more, to offer a secure liquid staking product suite.
PSTAKE is the governance and incentivization token of the pSTAKE Finance protocol. It has some of the most prominent investors, including Binance Labs, DeFiance Capital, Spartan Group, Coinbase Ventures, and Kraken Ventures.
