Stargaze, NFTs on Cosmos
With safe, fast and painless bridging, the DApp-specific chains linked through Cosmos IBC, together have the potential to be one of the dominant full-spectrum crypto ecosystems of Vitalik’s “multi-chain, not cross-chain” future.
Stargaze intends to be the central NFT platform for all of Cosmos. With its Genesis mint today, the Cosmic Cartel, members of TheBoringDAO, wanted to explain why we think the launch will be a game-changer for the Cosmos Metaverse.
It is yet to be seen if Cosmos will attract the same level of talent that Ethereum has in terms of NFT artists and the quality of collections there. To date there have been few challengers: On a normal day Crabada (Avalanche), Axie Infinity (Ronin) and NBA Top Shot (Flow) NFTs are among the few non-Ethereum projects with noticeable marketplace volume.
Proof-of-stake blockchains have yet to break Ethereum’s near monopoly, especially on high-value NFTs. While Solana, Flow and Avalanche each have their own brewing NFT ecosystems, they have all remained relatively small. Gas fees alone have not been enough of a deterrent for users to flee Ethereum NFTs.
Now it’s Cosmos’ turn to attempt a run at Ethereum dominance, with the launch of Passage’s marketplace last week, minting Strange Clan avatars, followed by Stargaze’s genesis mint today.
Stargaze
Stargaze is a layer 1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK that will be dedicated to NFTs solely. There are over 100 validators waiting to stake and secure the network. This allows Stargaze to react to bugs quickly and upgrade the network. As opposed to other NFT marketplaces living as dapps on L1s, Stargaze will have the unique ability to tailor its performance completely around the utility and transaction of NFTS. The team is also looking to curb scams in the space by creating a curation DAO. The DAO will vet projects to uphold quality, and avoid any copyright work. The community around Stargaze is one of the strongest in Cosmos, attributable in part to how hard the team works and speed at which they ship.
Stargaze is launching roughly 2 weeks after Passage opened up their NFT marketplace for trading of Strange Clan NFTs. There is potential for cross-IBC synergies, as NFT transfer between Stargaze and Juno will be seamless. For example, artists who have launched on Stargaze can make collections that are compatible in Passage 3D Worlds, giving them a whole new client base. Passage benefits by adding more items to choose from when customizing worlds, and benefits from visibility within Cosmos from the Stargaze community.
As with any NFT platform that hopes to take away market share from Opensea, Stargaze has a token live on the open market. The Stargaze TGE and airdrop was one of the smoothest in Cosmos and they even made the code open source for other projects to use in the future.
STARS performance has been solid through the recent volatility.
Let’s take a dive into how the STARS token will fit into the greater ecosystem.
Tokenomics
Stargaze’s STARS max supply is 4 billion tokens, with a Genesis Supply (see below) of 1 billion tokens. Another 1 billion will be issued during the first year, for 100% inflation. Issuance follows a “thirdening” (based on BTC’s halving) schedule.
Foundation tokens will be used to incentivize validators, creators to post content, and as grants for developers to come build on Stargaze.
Tokens for seed investors, validators, founders, and advisors are locked for 1 year and linearly vest over 6 months — 1 year.
Block rewards will be skewed towards incentivizing traction in the NFT marketplace.
While the exact mechanics haven’t been outlined in detail, the incentives will be given out to those who bid on NFTs and for staking NFTs. If the community fears the NFT incentives can be abused as they were LooksRare, they can vote to reduce rewards for certain actions.
Staking rewards go to validators, to whom retail holders can delegate in the traditional Cosmos fashion for a 5% delegation fee. The developer rewards will go towards funding the team.
As for the airdrop, Stargaze chose a mix of Cosmos participants, including ATOM stakers, OSMO stakers or LPs, and Stargaze validator stakers on Cosmos Hub, Osmosis and Regen Network.
Unclaimed airdrops start to decay after the launch of the NFT market and continue for another 4 months. The TGE and airdrop claim process were lauded as one of the smoothest on Cosmos and the first LBP on Osmosis.
It seems like a small detail but botched launches often hamstring a project coming out of the gates, see recent Evmos fiasco as an example.
Token sinks for Stargaze that are live include staking and incentivized LP pools. While impermanent loss can be worrisome, being an LP on Osmosis offers a way to earn yield without long lock up times. Superfluid staking with OSMO/STARS, while only a possibility at the current time, could provide a chance to stake the tokens to validators and LP at the same time.
STARS value accrual will happen through what the team calls fair burn. All fees generated on the platform will be split in the following way; 50% will get burned with the aim of making $STARS a deflationary asset.
If enough trade volume is generated on the platform it could lead to significant upward pressure on the price. The other half will go to validators of the network, incentivizing them to keep tokens locked for more than just the inflationary rewards. Fee distributions are subject to change by governance vote should the community want to.
STARS is needed by creators to stake if they wish to mint a collection in addition to passing through the vetting process. This provides some barrier for scammers who steal others’ artwork and resell it until someone catches on. It also acts as another token sink. Later down the line when the NFT launchpad feature goes live I expect that you will need to stake STARS to participate in early stage launches. If Stargaze is able to attract top artists this could end up being a deep sink.
Genesis Mint
For the launch today (March 11), there will be a total of 15 projects listed. 10 of them were selected by the curation DAO and the other 5 will be voted on by the community.
To stop any fraud collections from launching on Stargaze the team believed that a group to curate collections would protect users from financial loss. Moving forward any projects who wish to list on Stargaze will need to be approved by the DAO.
To check out the projects join the Stargaze Discord group and scroll down the side tabs to check all projects listed and those still waiting for an opportunity.
While demand for NFTs on Cosmos has yet to be proven, Stargaze is the first step in providing the infrastructure for making it a possibility. The team has proven themselves to be capable in running a community and in building proper smart contracts demonstrated by their smooth token launch. Having NFTs on Cosmos interoperable with over 100 chains is exciting and a future worth looking forward to.
