True to its name, Persistence has persistently grown its ecosystem since its launch in 2019. Slow and steady wins the race.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been covering everything there is to do with Persistence. First, we gave you the classic blocmates style complete rundown of the project. Then, we showed you its comprehensive liquid staking ecosystem, positioning it as one of the strongest players in the LSTfi and restaking sector for Cosmos.
Today, we take it one step further. We want to show you why Persistence should most definitely be on your radar if it isn’t already.
Narratives and Attention
Narratives in crypto are fickle. They’re largely an attention game. The game of musical chairs never ends as the degens mercilessly rotate from one narrative to the next.
However, a common mistake made by us short-sighted degens is getting confused between narratives and sectors with staying power. We miss the forest for the trees. Just because a sector had a massive spike in attention followed by a cool-off period doesn’t mean it’s done. The market is filled with these sectors.
So, although you’re probably making another 100x on memecoin of the week while I write this, I would like to bring your attention to two narratives that certainly have staying power.
- Restaking
- Bitcoin Ecosystem
Although they may seem relatively unrelated at first glance, Persistence One sits at the center of the two, harnessing the power of both to create the Cosmos super app.
So buckle up, my fellow ape, because today we will show you how exactly Persistence One fits into these sectors, making it a very underrated project.
The Restaking Revolution
To truly understand the role of persistence in restaking, we need to take a little trip down memory lane.
Persistence One started building out their liquid staking product in 2021. The reasoning was simple. The app-chain thesis was bound to take off, and we’ve seen that come to fruition with protocols like dydX, Celestia, Injective, and plenty more flourishing in the cosmos ecosystem.
But beyond this, the team at Persistence recognized the power of liquid staking derivatives. They understood that staking yield would become crypto’s equivalent of fixed incomed, which would then make the liquid staking derivatives the defacto base asset across the different chains.
Supported by this foresight, the team began building out what they call “The Persistence Economic Layer,” which has now come to fruition as we see products like pStake and Dexter have been very successful.
Of course, this will lead to the emergence of a bustling LSTfi sector with vaults, indexes, and money markets, but that’s beside the point for today.
Using this liquid staking layer as the foundation, Persistence aims to amplify security. This is for both itself and the broader Cosmos ecosystem. This will be done through our new favorite word of the year: restaking.
I’m sure most of you are already familiar with restaking as you patiently await that EigenLayer airdrop. But for those who don’t, the premise is simple: Liquid-staked assets directly contribute to a network's security.
By restaking those already staked assets, that security can be aggregated to other chains and protocols. Persistence will bring this concept to Cosmos to further heighten the ecosystem's economic security.
Other security models
There’s a very valid reason for this push. They have closely examined other security models currently operational within Cosmos and come to the conclusion that while they are sufficient, they are far from optimal.
Let’s go over some of them.
Replicated security
This form of security is commonly referred to as interchain security because it leverages Cosmos’ IBC to provide security to other chains.
It works like this. The Cosmos Hub is the provider chain and produces blocks for a consumer chain, which can be any app-chain on Cosmos. This is done by sharing the entire/subset of validators responsible for generating blocks via IBC, thereby replicating security.
Mesh Security
This was pioneered by Osmosis and works as follows.
There is this mesh of multiple chains, and whoever is on this mesh can secure each other's chain through something called virtual staking. So, chain A’s native token can interact with chain B’s staking module, and this way, economic security can be shared amongst the mesh.
Ethos ETH security
Ethos security is fairly simple. It involves extending ETH security.
Those who restaked their ETH with EigenLayer can aggregate ETH's security to Cosmos chains through Ethos. For doing so, the restakers will earn a certain reward from the Cosmos chains.
The Persistence One Way
While all of these methods are adequate, they have some noteworthy drawbacks.
Most of these models are primarily dependent on a single large cap token, they have extensive infrastructure needs, the validator set is externalized, they are built at the application layer, and scaling requires some form of business development.
A lot of hurdles that need to be leaped over.
With Persistence One, anything can be restaked through the platform to share economic security. Any asset can secure any chain. Pretty cool, right? Well, this comes with some added benefits for participants.
For starters, there are no additional infrastructure requirements as the system scales with code rather than nodes. This negates a major overhead cost burden that often dissuades most participants from participating in a chain's economic security. In addition, governance decides the rewards for restakers, which incentivizes multiple large-cap asset holders to take part and aggregate security for additional yield.
But most importantly, the chains remain sovereign. Restaking with Persistence will only add to a chain's security, but the utility token of said chain won’t really lose its utility, and the chain will remain sovereign. This is really important as it removes a certain element of path dependence that most people might not be comfortable with.
However, there is one more layer to Persistence’s plans.
Remember how we mentioned “Bitcoin Ecosystem” earlier in this article? You might’ve been confused, thinking, “What the hell does Bitcoin have to do with a Cosmos chain?”
Well young Padawan, it turns out there is a lot more to it than what meets the eye.
Babylon x Persistence One
For those who don’t know, Babylon is a Bitcoin staking protocol. The idea behind it is simple: use the premier asset in crypto to secure other proof-of-stake chains.
We all know Bitcoin is one of the safest and most decentralized chains since it uses proof of work. Babylon aims to distribute this security by allowing BTC holders to stake their assets. On one side, the BTC holders can earn yield for locking up their capital and securing other protocols. On the other hand, PoS chains don’t need to have highly inflationary tokenomics for economic security. They can simply get this through Babylon.
The partnership with Babylon is designed to bring BTC’s security to Persistence One's liquid staking and restaking ecosystem.
Persistence One has been involved in Babylon's growth story since its beginnings in April 2023. They were a part of Babylon’s timestamping testnet and have now integrated Bitcoin staking from Babylon onto the Persistence testnet. Once Babylon goes live on mainnet with BTC staking, Persistence will instantly integrate it into their mainnet.
Apart from the fact that BTC is the premier asset of crypto, we have seen a huge amount of interest in Bitcoin-native applications recently, with Bitcoin layer 2s and Ordinals being the most popular.
This trend towards Bitcoin native applications will only keep growing, which puts the odds of Babylon seeing great success even higher.
By integrating Babylon, Persistence can not only enhance security but also firmly position itself within this narrative to attract more users to the Cosmos ecosystem.
Concluding Thoughts
We at blocmates really value long-term builders. Builders who have a vision and patiently execute it.
This is a dying breed in today's market, as we only see builders chase a narrative to grift a little money from unsuspecting individuals. Persistence has had a vision since 2019 and has meticulously executed every part of it every step of the way.
Now, we see their master plan start to take shape.
They are now perfectly positioned between two strong narratives, which, combined with their location in the budding Cosmos ecosystem, further heightens their attractiveness as a project.
The best part is that they are just getting started. The ball has only just started rolling, and they have a ton of top-secret stuff in the pipeline that will be launching very soon.
When people keep saying, back good builders, it’s not a meme. Persistence is the perfect embodiment of dedicated builders looking to help the ecosystem grow and these guys are most definitely a team you need on your radar.
