[THE SCOOP]

Building Ecosystem of Liquidity, Institutional DeFi and NFT products

Persistence One AMA

Persistence is an interoperable protocol built to facilitate the creation of next-gen financial products. The Persistence tech stack provides the infrastructure to effectively bridge the realms of DeFi and traditional finance in a variety of areas, whilst also enabling the creation of innovative crypto-facing solutions to expand the DeFi and NFT sectors.

🀰 1. PERSISTENCE PROTOCOL

Q1. What is Persistence One and who are its backers?

Persistence is an interoperable protocol built to facilitate the creation of next-gen financial products. The Persistence tech stack provides the infrastructure to effectively bridge the realms of DeFi and traditional finance in a variety of areas, whilst also enabling the creation of innovative crypto-facing solutions to expand the DeFi and NFT sectors.

Persistence aims to become the gateway to DeFi by enabling flow of various assets (such as PoS assets, real-world assets) into DeFi growing the liquidity and accessibility.

Persistence is backed by industry heavyweights including Terra, Tendermint, Interchain Foundation, Alameda Research, Arrington XRP Capital, IOSG Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, LuneX Ventures, Ledger Prime and prominent industry personalities Richard Ma (Founder of Quantstamp) and Danish Chaudhry (Head of Bitcoin.com Exchange).

Q2. How will Persistence drive user adoption ?

The Crypto ecosystem is growing significantly but the mass adoption and high-value will only flow in if there is tangible use to Crypto. Our approach is to create liquidity for the assets that are locked or inaccessible and allow to leverage them in the DeFi. The crucial aspect to drive user adoption is also to create a seamless user experience and it remains the integral part of our product development.

☇ Q2–1. How does it help Crypto users ?

It provides accessibility to real-world assets or PoS assets and allows users to earn sustainable income. In addition to that, participate in the asset-classes that have been operating behind the high walls.

☇ Q2–2. How will it help traditional businesses ?

Gain liquidity and financing to operate their businesses.

Some of the other problems we are solving:

On the institutional side:

On the DeFi Side:

We believe this is the most effective way to drive mass adoption — bridging DeFi and traditional finance.

Q3. What are Persistence’s envisioned use-cases ?

Persistence has been working on both institutional and crypto-native use-cases since the start. Our goal is to work on the following core things:

• Accessibility
• Liquidity
• Sustainability (Fixed Income)

With the same respect we have been building different projects to cater to the needs of both institutional and crypto-native users.

We have already developed a full suite of financial products:

• pStake: Liquid staking product unlocking liquidity of staked assets.
• Comdex: Institutional-facing commodities trading and trade financing platform. Handled over $100M in transaction volume.
• AUDIT.one: Staking-as-a-service infrastructure. Currently over $250M in assets under management.
• Asset Mantle: Interoperable NFT marketplace framework, enabling the creation of ‘Shopify-style’ NFT marketplaces.

💡 Find out more about the ecosystem here

Q4. What are the unique opportunities Persistence offers within DeFi and NFT spaces ?

Persistence’s interoperable infrastructure provides the means to create an endless array of cutting-edge crypto-facing products which can offer unique opportunities within DeFi and the NFT space that have never before been seen in the blockchain industry. Persistence is operating at the confluence of NFTs + DeFi + PoS Staking.

Within the DeFi space, we have been building a suite of financial products for the crypto-native user:

• pStake: Liquid staking product unlocking liquidity of staked assets.
• pLend: Stablecoin lending platform backed by real-world assets.

Coming to the NFT space, we are working on creating long-term value by developing utility for NFTs beyond art and collectible, for example tokenizing business invoices, ownership documents etc.

💡 Find more about our work here

More of our in-depth work can be seen with development of interNFT standards.

Currently we are leading the working group of 20+ projects to develop these standards that include Polkadot, Cosmos, Kusama, Akash Network, Secret Network etc.

Q5. How will Persistence answer the growing demand for additional yield generation from staked assets ?

Persistence launched its StakeDrop campaign with 7 networks — Cosmos, Polkadot, Tezos, Terra, Kava, Iris and Polygon. Having concluded campaigns for 4 networks, we already have 3000+ participating who have staked more than $1 Billion worth of assets to earn $XPRT tokens.

This showed us the huge demand for additional yield generation from the staked assets. To cater to this demand, we developed the Liquid Staking protocol — pSTAKE.

pStake is undoubtedly one of the most sophisticated Liquid Staking dApp which not only provides liquidity but also replicates the underlying network’s governance. To emphasise more on why pStake will positively impact the staking ecosystem:

• Decreasing the barriers to Staking: Most of the PoS assets are not staked today due to issues such as liquidity but pStake’s redemption model provides instant liquidity without impacting the network security
• Enabling cross-chain ecosystem: Through pStake token holders of different PoS assets will be able to bring their assets to Ethereum, this will significantly grow the adoption of PoS ecosystem.
• Additional rewards: The users will be able to earn LP Rewards or other DeFi incentives in addition to their staking rewards.

💡 Follow @pStakeFinance for the latest updates on pStake

🀰 2. THE XPRT TOKEN

Q1. How will the XPRT token be used and what is its value in the system ?

XPRT is the token around which the entire ecosystem is built, thus staking XPRT to secure the chain will result in a great deal of exposure to multiple dApps in the ecosystem for stakers.

The token plays 3 keys roles:

1. Staking token (similar to other Tendermint based chains like Band, Kava, Terra, Iris)
2. Governance of the chain (not app)
3. Work token (stakers and delegators receive cash flows from the pStake, Comdex dApp as well as other dApps in the future)

Since incentive for staking XPRT are so high, we believe the staking ratio will be significantly high which will result in high-security of the network.

Q2. How will the XPRT token be distributed, and at what rate ?

The XPRT token distribution model and release schedule have been carefully ideated to facilitate the long-term growth of a strong, engaged and vibrant participant ecosystem.

As with other Tendermint-based chains, the token supply will be inflationary in nature, up to a certain point in the future, to facilitate staking rewards. Inflation will occur at 35% for the initial two years followed by a halving in inflation every 2 years with a target bonding (staked token percentage) of 67% of XPRT to secure the network.

100 million XPRT will be minted at genesis and will be gradually released over the course of 42 months.

💡 Detail XPRT distribution can be found here

Q3. How does a token holder get staking benefits through delegation ?

Persistence’s lucrative staking rewards incentivize XPRT holders to stake their tokens, thus increasing network security. Due to the inflation halving every two years, early stakers will be rewarded with the best staking yields.

Persistence has onboarded some of the world’s top validators, which collectively secure over $15B worth of assets across multiple networks. We are committed to ensuring the utmost security and robustness of our network.

XPRT holders can delegate their tokens to our validators for staking (35% APR in the first year).

🀰 3. STAKING ON PERSISTENCE, DELEGATING TO DSRV

Q1. Why stake $XPRT

The utility of $XPRT is designed in a way that all the $XPRT stakers will have value accrual from all the apps running the Persistence ecosystem. This will serve as a great motivation for the community to participate in the staking and in return on-chain governance. Stakers and delegators shall receive cash flows from the pStake and Comdex dApp as well as other Persistence ecosystem dApps built in the future.

Finally, the lucrative staking rewards of generating 35% APY for the first year further incentivizes the XPRT holders to stake their assets through our highly reliable validator partners.

Q2. Why delegate to DSRV

Beyond a strong reputation across multiple networks, you’ll want a validator that maximizes uptime without risking the possibility of breaking protocol rules by double-signing or committing an invalid state transition. The Persistence team sets extremely high expectations for themselves and their technology. DSRV not only provides enterprise-grade services that require powerful machines, high bandwidth and the very highest standards and practices but also is uniquely positioned to support Persistence’s token holders.

• DSRV has a strong track record of contributing to the growth of blockchain networks and can bring their expertise from validating on more than 20+ blockchains.
• DSRV places the community first by bridging the South Korean community members with global blockchain networks and creating a more vibrant ecosystem.
• DSRV prioritizes security above everything else and provides multi-cloud multi-region institutional staking infrastructure.

Q3. How is DSRV contributing to top blockchain networks including Persistence ?

DSRV is a team dedicated to the security of blockchain networks. As an experienced validator, we run fully-managed nodes and infrastructure solutions to enable participants to stake their tokens and earn rewards. DSRV provides a suite of easy-to-use infrastructure products and services on multiple blockchains, including blockchain explorers and browser extension wallets for top blockchain networks under the concept of “Proof-Of-Contribution.”

DSRV will continuously develop services and tools to support the network while closely tracking the growth of the Persistence ecosystem.

Q4. How will DSRV support the community ?

Starting off as a group of community members of “Nonce”, a grassroot community and co-working/living spaces based in Seoul for those who share the belief of creating a more healthy blockchain ecosystem, DSRV is deeply connected to the very core of Korean blockchain community. There are 150 members with diverse backgrounds, many of whom collaborate together on leading blockchain projects. The residential, business and networking spaces are all packed together in one building to maximize the synergy.

Also, we’re committed to developing a healthier crypto community in South Korea by actively interacting with key university blockchain societies in Seoul including YBL, Ewha-chain to introduce new protocols and to provide a better understanding of them.

Q5. What are the core values and strengths that DSRV provides ?

Having built a reputation for being a professional node operator, DSRV takes pride in our services to achieve network security under any circumstances. We will provide the opportunities for blockchain communities to participate in the most robust and secure infrastructure in Proof-of-Stake networks.

• Harness the power of blockchain technology and proof-of-stake to build a truly global, distributed economy that solves many of the inefficiencies of the legacy financial system.
• Mission-driven, backed by the community and leading institutions in Korea

🀰 4. THE FUTURE OF PERSISTENCE & DSRV

Q1. How Persistence will envision the new era of DeFi and financial products ?

The Internet disintermediated the media & communications industry. Using HTTP, SMTP, and TCP/IP as the foundational layers, the cost of information exchange was significantly lowered.
Data flows like water today.

Persistence is leveraging blockchain technology to facilitate seamless asset exchange. Using Web 3.0 protocols, Persistence is providing the infrastructure for the creation of a suite of bleeding edge financial products ranging from NFT marketplaces and tokenized ‘real-world’ debt trading platforms to taking-as-a-service infrastructure.
Digital assets will flow like water tomorrow.

We’ve come a long way on our journey to usher in this new financial paradigm since Persistence began as a concept in 2018.

Talking about the milestones we have achieved so far and the future plans:

1. We have onboarded some of the top validators around the world like DSRV.
2. Comdex as the first dApp has significant traction — $100 Million+ in transaction volume and more than 18 trading organisation onboarded
3. We have solid team in place on the business, tech and community fronts — 25+ members
4. We are also leading the Global working group along with ICF and ixo to develop interchain standards for NFT and Metadata

💡 To know more on ICF & NFT, click here

Considering plans for the future, we are about to launch our Liquid Staking Application — pSTAKE later this quarter.

We will be following up with our NFT product- Asset Mantle next quarter.

Our progress so far, however, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Persistence has in store. The DeFi ecosystem has a huge growth potential and we are really excited about working on solving the key challenges faced by the DeFi ecosystem and bridging the gap between Traditional Finance and DeFi through our easy-to-use financial products.

Q2. How will DSRV power this paradigm shift as an experienced infrastructure validator ?

We understand that the lack of information and lack of global participation are one of the most difficult challenges in realizing the vision of a decentralized, open-financial system. For that matter, DSRV is impressed with what Persistence has built so far and will help secure the network through staking while building infrastructure solutions and engaging the local community.

As we believe Persistence provides an umbrella to a suite of next-gen financial products with real-world utility, DSRV will continue to lay the robust foundation for the pioneer of tomorrow to lead financial innovation by supporting decentralized finance applications as a trusted partner and a strong technical contributor.

Special Thanks

Special thanks to Rudraj and Abhitej for putting thoughts into this AMA together and spending time to answer our many questions.

Thanks to John Park, our Head of BD, for inviting the Persistence One team and hosting this AMA.

Thanks to our UX/UI design team for the thoughtful editing of this post that highlighted high-quality answers.

Hopefully you found this useful. Feedback is always welcome!

DSRV is a leading blockchain infrastructure provider based in Seoul, South Korea, dedicated to bringing distributed technology to millions of people worldwide through proof-of-stake.

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