In a compelling presentation at the Cosmoverse event, Vishal Talasani, co-founder of Stride protocol, shared a comprehensive overview of Stride’s achievements, the significance of interchange security, and its proposal for improving the Cosmos Hub.
Stride Protocol, a blockchain-based liquid staking protocol in the Cosmos ecosystem, revolutionizes staking by enabling users to stake tokens from any Cosmos chain and receive stTokens in return.
These stTokens provide an automated compounding staking yield, along with additional benefits like lending and liquidity provision.
Discussing the innovative Liquid Staking Module (LSM) developed by Stride, Vishal highlighted how users can swiftly convert their stake into liquid stTokens without having to wait for the standard 21-day unbonding period.
Moreover, he emphasized the importance of decentralizing liquid staking in the Web3 space. When liquid staking protocols are built with centralization in mind, they become controlled by a single entity, resulting in a lack of transparency and trust among users.
Another drawback of centralized liquid-staking services is their limited interoperability. Users often find it challenging to transfer their staked tokens to other networks or decentralized exchanges seamlessly.
This limitation hinders the flexibility and accessibility of the protocol, preventing users from accessing a wider selection of DeFi protocols across multiple chains. In contrast, decentralized liquid staking solutions are designed to be composable and interoperable, offering greater flexibility and accessibility.
Security of liquid staking protocols
The co-founder emphasized the importance of a thoughtful and safe approach to scaling liquid staking. This is where Interchain Security (ICS) comes into play, strengthening the alignment between Stride and the Cosmos Hub.
ICS is a shared security model specific to the Cosmos ecosystem, built using the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC). It enables the Cosmos Hub to produce blocks for a consumer chain by allowing validators to run two nodes: one for the Cosmos Hub and one for the consumer chain.
Designed to be secure and resilient against hacks, Interchain Security is a collaborative effort involving various teams within the Cosmos ecosystem.
Vishal highlighted how this effort contributes to building a secure infrastructure that will enable Stride to offer a safe and integrated liquid staking service within the Cosmos ecosystem.
Roadmap and the future of Stride on Cosmos
During his presentation, he also provided a glimpse into Stride’s upcoming roadmap. The roadmap encompasses three primary objectives. Firstly, Stride plans to deploy additional SD tokens, with exciting prospects like Celestia and dydx on the horizon.
Secondly, Stride aims to deepen existing integrations, expanding the amount and variety of collateral used throughout the ecosystem. Lastly, the protocol is eager to expand the use of Adam and SD Atom to ecosystems beyond the Cosmos, such as Arbitrum and Polkadot.
In addition to these objectives, the presentation included a proposal to merge Stride with the Cosmos Hub. This proposal suggests that the Cosmos Hub would gain full governance control over the Stride protocol, with Adam becoming the primary governance token.
This control would extend to all aspects of the protocol, including decisions on chain expansion, architectural changes, and parameter adjustments.
