Stride Briefing: 9th Edition
Jun 14, 2023
· 3 min read
The Stride Briefing is the easiest way to keep abreast of all things Stride. Every two weeks, simply skim the Briefing to keep up to date on: recent Stride events, upcoming Stride events, and the status of Stride DAO liquidity incentives.
Welcome to briefing #9!
What is Stride?
Stride is a liquid staking provider for blockchains in the Cosmos ecosystem. Using Stride’s liquid staked tokens (LSTs), you can earn staking rewards from Cosmos proof-of-stake tokens without having to stake them. Since your tokens remain liquid, you can deploy them in DeFi while earning staking rewards. Thanks to Stride, you no longer have to choose between staking yield and DeFi yield - now you can have both at once!
Stride’s liquid staked tokens are called stTokens, and are issued on the Stride blockchain. Use stTokens to provide liquidity on the Osmosis DEX, to collateralize a loan on the Umee money market, to collateralize a stablecoin on Shade Protocol. These are just a few examples of the many stToken integrations available across the Cosmos ecosystem.
Tokens currently supported for liquid staking: ATOM, OSMO, INJ, JUNO, STARS, LUNA, EVMOS, UMEE.
Have questions? Check out Stride’s thorough FAQ, or join the Stride Discord.
Recent events
Osmosis has implemented OSMO incentives for LSTs
Long reluctant to devote incentives to liquid staked tokens (LSTs), Osmosis governance has changed its mind. As a sign of the increasing relevance and importance of LSTs, 5% of daily OSMO incentives are now allocated to LSTs.
One-click liquid staking implemented on the Stride web application
Stride’s UI/UX was already very smooth - but now it’s even smoother. Previously, two clicks were needed to liquid stake on Stride, and now it only takes a single click. This is in fact quite important. Sride contributors have a special focus on reducing user-friction, and generally making liquid staking as simple and friendly as possible.
Stride community to acquire Badkids NFTs
STRD stakers passed a proposal to use 15,000 STRD from the community pool to acquire Badkids NFTs. Cosmos founders Ethan Buchman and Zaki Manian wear Badkids as their PFPs, as do many Cosmos builders. By acquiring Badkids, the Stride community signals its alignment with the culture of the Cosmos ecosystem.
Stride’s stLUNA is now stakable on the Carbon blockchain
Using the new Alliance module, stLUNA can now be staked on the Carbon blockchain. stLUNA has a built-in LUNA staking reward since it’s an LST of LUNA, and when staked on the Carbon blockchain it earns additional rewards, in the form of SWTH, Carbon’s governance token.
Upcoming events
This is the biggest event since Stride’s launch! By adopting interchain security (ICS), the Stride blockchain will become the first ever live chain to transition from its own validator set to Cosmos Hub’s validator set. This will increase the economic security of the Stride blockchain by roughly 100x.
As a result of adopting ICS, Stride will join Cosmos Hub and Neutron in the ATOM Economic Zone (AEZ), an exclusive group of blockchains that work together for mutual economic benefit. In the first major collaborative action of the AEZ, Cosmos Hub will be providing 450,000 ATOM to the stATOM/ATOM liquidity pool on Neutron.
Umee contributors continue to work on supporting stJUNO for the Umee money market. According to this tweet, it shouldn’t be long now! Once supported as a collateral token, for the first time ever users will be able to borrow against JUNO without forfeiting staking rewards.
stToken trading liquidity
The availability of stToken trading liquidity is key to the Stride liquid staking experience, as it allows users to swap into or out of stTokens whenever they like. What’s more, deep stToken liquidity pools serve as price oracles, enabling stTokens to be safely collateralized on DeFi apps like Umee and Mars.
As stToken trading liquidity is crucial, liquidity incentives are deployed to maintain it. And for the sake of transparency and reliability, dependable forward guidance about incentives is always provided.
The current thirty-day incentive program began on June 6th and will conclude on July 5th. The table below shows the incentives currently being provided. (In addition to these incentives, various Cosmos DAOs also provide incentives to stToken liquidity pools, namely the Evmos DAO, Osmosis DAO, and Shade Protocol, and others.)
For more information about the current Stride thirty-day incentive program, check out this blog post. Ample notice will be given before the next incentive program begins.
That's all for now!
