Several major catalysts are entering the universe that will unlock user adoption and on-chain liquidity by orders of magnitude. These are the things I’m excited about

1.MetAmask integration - Let's face the truth, MetAmask is the most used wallet in the world with 30m monthly active users, compare it to Keplr by cosmos which is around 800k. (Still a great wallet, but network effects matter)

Bridging any chain that doesn’t have MM integration is a pain, any Axelar user knows this. This is a small hurdle that will make it easier for capital to enter and exit the ecosystem and will bring user adoption to the most popular wallet in Crypto

2.Liquid Staking Module（LSM）

@iqlusioninc - Atom has a fork ratio of 70%, so the switching cost for LST adoption is high as users will have to endure a brutal 21 day keyless period which equates to 3 months of crypto.

However, LSM will allow instant swaps from Stake Atoms to Liquid Atoms (like Stride’s STATOM). Currently, Liquid Atom adoption is around 1%, and with LSM, it’s possible for 25% of Stakek Atoms to become STATOMs (this could be increased through an Atom Gov vote)

3.AEZ

The Atomic Economic Zone (AEZ) will join on July 19th and will pass BOCK production responsibility from the Phase Validator set to the COSMOS HUB validator set, which is essentially 100x the economic security.

This is critical to Stride’s adoption, as STRIDE has already ballooned its TVL to $37 million, with only $22 million worth of bonds securing the network. However, with the growth of AEZ, Stride will be able to tap into $2.3 billion worth of economic security provided by the Atom validator set.

Additionally, Umee announced their plans to join AEZ, which is a great fit for not only the adoption of Statom, but the adoption of DeFi in the entire universe, as there is now a place where one can leverage Staked’s source of interchain credit, Atom as well.

As we have seen on Ethereum, money markets play an important role as Steth accounts for about 25% of AAVE TVL as it allows people to cycle leverage across various trading strategies and LST is also a higher collateral for intrinsic reasons.

4. Native stablecoin USDC

Defi cannot thrive without native liquidity. With USDC coming to Cosmos via Noble, risk management for OnChain trading strategies becomes much easier as $ stability is introduced and bridge risk is eliminated. Cosmos has had an amazing tech stack for a while now, something that few have actually disputed. The vision of Cosmos takes Ethereum’s end game into application-specific rollups, essentially working backwards towards the same goal. Obviously, there have been some difficulties in articulating this vision, but this ecosystem has been working hard during both bull and bear markets to push the vision forward, and it will pay off in major ways.

With so many other exciting cosmic chains coming soon (SEI, BERA, CELESTIA), there couldn’t be a more exciting time to be working with the Stride team in this next chapter of their growth!