Persistence has launched a beta version of pSTAKE on its mainnet, enabling users to stake pATOM tokens in pSTAKE, and be rewarded with stkATOM. The beta version doesn’t yet provide the ability to stake XPRT — the native Persistence token. However, pSTAKE Finance’s website has indicated that it’s coming soon. pATOM is a token pegged to the value of ATOM — the governance token of the Cosmos network.
stkATOM is the liquid staked representative of the pATOM you staked. This is possible via a concept called liquid staking. Liquid staking enables you to earn staking rewards on your tokens while investing them in other decentralized finance (DeFi) applications to earn yields such as liquidity fees or interest. The liquid representative tokens issued when you stake tokens on pSTAKe can be used to earn DeFi yields on another blockchain — for example: Ethereum.
This matters because staking normally locks users tokens and unstaking entails waiting days for an unbonding period to end. On the pSTAKE beta interface you can wrap ATOM tokens and receive pATOM tokens, which you can then stake to receive the liquid stkATOM tokens mentioned. This liquid staking concept is especially interesting due to the fact that you can earn staking rewards while investing in riskier endeavors such as liquidity mining. Staking in such a case could provide funding to help offset your losses (if any). You can try it out via their new staking interface.
