Why change?

Once a small chain, Stride now finds itself at the center of the Cosmos ecosystem. And as Stride joins the ATOM Economic Zone and adopts interchain security, it’s poised to become even more central.

As such, Stride needs a new brand that reflects its new place in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Today, that new brand is being unveiled. It’s more sleek, more clean, more intentional, and better evokes the security and professionalism of Stride.

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Past, present, future

When it launched in September 2022, Stride was a small appchain brimming with potential - much like Cosmos DeFi in general. Since then, Stride’s liquid staking has catalyzed a wave of DeFi activity throughout the Cosmos. As Cosmos DeFi has taken off, Stride has become an essential part of it.

On the Umee money market, Stride’s stATOM is the most popular collateral. Likewise, stATOM plays a critical part for the Mars money market on Osmosis. For both USK and SILK, the two biggest stablecoins in the Cosmos that accept decentralized collateral - stATOM is the most popular collateral token. And on the Osmosis DEX, the stATOM pool is the second largest pool. These are just the biggest of Stride’s many integrations throughout Cosmos DeFi.

As Stride becomes an essential Cosmos blockchain, it’s evolving to better serve the Cosmos. On July 19th, the Stride blockchain is expected to transition to interchain security (ICS). Currently, Stride is a normal Cosmos proof of stake chain, economically secured by its governance token, STRD. But when it transitions to ICS, Stride will become economically secured by Cosmos Hub’s validator set and all its staked ATOM. The ~$2B of staked ATOM on Cosmos Hub will secure both Cosmos Hub and Stride, vastly increasing the security of Stride.

What’s more, Stride has been accepted into the ATOM Economic Zone (AEZ). This is a group of blockchains, led by Cosmos Hub, that work together for mutual economic benefit. In the AEZ’s first liquidity sharing agreement, 450,000 ATOM from the Cosmos Hub community pool will be deployed to an stATOM/ATOM liquidity pool on Astroport Neutron. This major development signals the trust and confidence the Cosmos Hub community has in Stride.

Looking to the future, there’s still lots to be done! Stride contributors are hard at work building new user experience features, to make liquid staking as easy as possible. New chains are always being on-boarded for Stride liquid staking. And work is constantly being done to further integrate Stride’s liquid staked tokens throughout Cosmos DeFi.

But most important of all is security, which has always been Stride’s biggest priority. Security features like continual auditing, chain minimalism, IBC rate-limiting, and interchain security make Stride the safest liquid staking provider in the Cosmos.

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Look the part

Stride’s new branding signifies everything Stride has become. As Cosmos DeFi continues to expand and liquid staking plays an increasingly important role, whales, institutions, DAOs, and other entities are becoming more inclined to liquid stake. And as Stride gains prominence, it is increasingly attracting attention from outside the Cosmos. For all the Stride new-comers, the new branding shows them what to expect:

Security, professionalism, innovation, and a strong alignment with the whole Cosmos ecosystem.

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