Cosmos DeFi is Heating Up with Launch of Persistence

The idea of DeFi as a segment dominated by Ethereum is rapidly becoming an outdated concept. Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, and Cosmos are all nurturing burgeoning DeFi ecosystems of their own. In the case of the latter, the last year or so has seen popular protocols including Terra, Kava, and Band Protocol all rapidly rise in prominence. 

Now, DeFi on Cosmos is gaining a further boost as Persistence steams through the milestones on its roadmap. This project, which has been something of a sleeping lion before now, has been quietly gaining significant traction among users. 

What is Persistence? 

Persistence is an ecosystem of institutional and crypto-native DeFi and NFT-focused products. The project delivers a tech stack providing the infrastructure to effectively bridge DeFi and traditional finance in a variety of areas, thereby opening the floodgates for a new wave of liquidity to enter the crypto space while creating significant new income streams for both institutional and crypto-native users. At the same time, it enables the creation of cutting-edge crypto-facing solutions to expand the DeFi and NFT sectors.

Currently, the platform has five core components. 

Comdex is a decentralized commodities exchange and trade financing platform which utilizes NFTs to tokenize trade invoices and bring them on chain. It aims to make each step of the commodities trade process faster and smoother, with features including built-in KYC, shared document viewing and e-signing, and near-instant settlements. All documentation is stored immutably on the blockchain. 

Comdex is the first product in the Persistence ecosystem and has already handled over $65 million in transaction volume, with $500 million projected for 2021. 

AUDIT.One is a staking-as-a-service solution provider for Proof-of-Stake networks. It currently supports 11 networks, including Cosmos, Terra, Near, Polygon, and more, with Polkadot, Ethereum, and Tezos among those to be added soon. AUDIT.One is the largest validator in South and Southeast Asia with more than $250m worth of assets under delegation. Persistence has also white-labeled the AUDIT.One infrastructure to Tavis Digital, the digital asset arm of Swiss asset management firm Tavis Capital, which manages over $1 billion. 

Still to Come

Due to go live imminently, pStake is a liquid staking protocol that allows stakers to unlock the value of their staked assets. These staked assets can then be used to generate higher yields by putting them to further work in DeFi protocols. Given that the PoS market cap now exceeds $630 billion, Persistence is anticipating significant demand from users eager to extract further value from their locked funds. 

Two further products due to launch on the Persistence mainnet in 2021 are an NFT platform called Asset Mantle and a lending app called pLend. Asset Mantle will allow anyone to build their own NFT marketplace in just a few hours. Notably, these NFTs will be interoperable between multiple major chains. Persistence is already working with an established art auction house to build an art NFT exchange, and the team is exploring partnerships with other major names across various industries. 

On the lending side, pLend is a real-world asset debt financing platform which uses NFTs to tokenize debt. In debt financing, primary financiers provide up front capital to finance a transaction at competitive interest rates. pLend will allow stablecoin holders to seamlessly participate in the $65B global trade financing industry. This is a huge leap towards the bridging of traditional finance and DeFi.

Since launching the XPRT token in late Q1 2021, the number of Persistence wallets has been rising sharply, with 3,200 addresses created in the first month after launch and a 40% increase in the last month of April. 

A Stellar Network, Community, and Team

Persistence has been working hard to grow its network, with some notable results. Hailing from India, the project is headed by Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia recipient Tushar Aggarwal, CEO, and Deepanshu Tripathi, CTO, who both have an extensive background as blockchain and fintech entrepreneurs.  

On the advisory side, Persistence has onboarded co-founders/executives hailing from projects including Polygon, Tezos, and Tendermint and investment firms including Spartan Capital, Arcanum Capital, and Tavis Digital. The project has attracted high-profile investors, including Arrington Capital, Alameda Research, and 3Commas, among others. 

Persistence has also onboarded an impressive global group of validators to its network, including Huobi Pool, Cosmostation, Band Protocol, and Tavis Digital. The sixteen genesis validators in the ecosystem secure over $7 billion worth of assets in aggregate. Close to 90% of Persistence XPRT tokens are staked, with XPRT staking offering rewards of over 35%. 

The project is also facilitating a community initiative called interNFT – a working group consisting of the leading interoperable blockchain projects and protocols. It’s building a set of inter-chain standards for NFTs and NFT metadata. The group was initiated by the Interchain Foundation and comprises members including Polkadot, Kusama, and Centrifuge. 

With all this going on, it’s hard to believe that Persistence hasn’t previously drawn more attention from the crypto press. However, with their pStake and Asset Mantle products ready to launch within the coming weeks and months, it seems inevitable that the project will start making a splash among institutions and crypto users.