FireStride Chat (8/17/23)

FireStride Chats occur on Thursdays at 5:00 PM UTC in the official Stride Discord. You can find a recordings of FireStride Chats on the Stride Community Youtube.

In the latest FireStride Chat, Stride contributor Aiden and Summer participated in the discussion to offer updates about upcoming integrations and other protocol advancements.

• A major focus was the v13 upgrade for Stride. Just last week, Vishal teased that this upgrade was on the horizon, and this chat aimed to discuss its progress. Aiden highlighted the swift evolution of Stride, noting that in its inaugural year, it underwent almost 14 updates. The v13 upgrade adds enhancements like: addressing redundant IBC packets, debuting an ICA oracle, fixing the flow of stTokens not reaching the Cosmos Hub stakers, and making tweaks to ICS itself.
• The v13 upgrade was initially planned for an earlier time, spam transactions, although not malicious, led to longer block times and thus a delayed upgrade. Previously, Stride had no transaction fees, which allowed for a more user-friendly experience. However, due to the spam, transaction fees were introduced. While this change might improve some aspects, such as adding a use case for STRD tokens, it also indicated a slight compromise in user experience.
• There’s exciting news for stATOM, which is soon to debut on the Sei Network. Additionally, Stride and Astroport are teaming up to co-incentivize an stATOM-USDC pool on Astroport via Sei.
• The Cosmos Hub community pool has generously allocated asubstantial 450K ATOM for the stATOM-ATOM liquidity pool on Neutron’s Astroport DEX, marking a significant milestone for Stride and Cosmos Hub. This allocation not only boosts trading liquidity, but makes the way for Neutron applications to efficiently utilize stATOM, and also hints at the possibility of Mars on Neutron using stATOM as collateral. This also makes the largest protocol owned liquidity in a liquidity pool in Cosmos.
• stATOM will potentially be used as collateral on Agoric. There’s a strong argument for using stATOM as collateral for Agoric, considering there’s billions of dollars of staked ATOM and a lack of stablecoins in the Cosmos.
• Helix, the pioneering orderbook-based DEX for INJ, has rolled out its LST markets, offering users a robust platform to trade stINJ markets using $INJ.
• ATOM’s value and stance in the market sparked queries. Aiden, addressing these concerns, emphasized that despite some critiques, ATOM’s inherent worth as the cornerstone of value in Cosmos remains unmatched. Drawing inspiration from BTC’s and ETH’s trajectories, he underscored stETH’s role as a pivotal collateral asset. Aiden proposes that the Cosmos hub could amplify its dominance by intensifying its stake in the chains it safeguards while rolling out supplementary services.
• A question arose about LSM’s position in relation to Stride. At first glance, LSM could seem to rival Stride, given its liquid staking token minting ability. Yet, a deeper dive reveals a different story: tokens minted via LSM are confined to a specific validator on the Cosmos Hub, curtailing their broad-scale usability within the Cosmos.WithoutIn this light, LSM doesn’t compete but rather augments Stride. Prior to LSM’s inception, atom unbonding was a tedious three-week affair, preceding any liquid staking. This often meant forfeiting yields. LSM’s advent has streamlined this on Stride, enhancing user experience considerably.
• The notion of Stride pioneering a liquid staking DEX was brought up. In alignment with Cosmos’s ethos and interchain collaboration, Aidan believes Stride should prioritize liquid staking, leaving DEX innovations to the specialists.

Full recording of the FireStride Chat can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVKA-yEmCZ8

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