Liquid staking protocol pSTAKE raises $10M from notable cryptocurrency venture capital firms and angel investors

On Tuesday, pSTAKE, a liquid staking protocol from decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Persistence, announced in a statement provided to Cointelegraph that it had closed a $10 million strategic funding round from venture capital firms. Tendermint, the core developer behind the Cosmos network, powers Persistence blockchain with its consensus engine.

Liquid staking is the practice of users “double-dipping” with their crypto assets — i.e., allowing them to stake their crypto in one pool and use their staked assets to farm yields in a liquidity provider pool, or vice versa. The process enables higher compounded yields, as assets generate returns in two pools instead of one, but it is also riskier, as investors hold multi-layer derivatives of their original token.

— pSTAKE Finance (,) (@pStakeFinance) November 12, 2021

The funding was backed by various venture capital groups, such as Three Arrows Capital, Sequoia Capital India, Galaxy Digital, DeFiance Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Tendermint Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Alameda Research, Sino Global Capital and Spartan Group. In addition, angel investors such as Ajit Tripathi, head of institutional business development at Aave; Do Kwon, founder of Terra; and Tascha Punyaneramitdee, co-founder of Alpha Finance, also joined in.

Tushar Aggarwal, CEO and Founder of Persistence, said:

“PSTAKE has experienced significant organic growth since its uncapped launch in September, and we are thrilled to continue building on this upward trajectory.”

Shailesh Lakhani, managing director of Sequoia India, gave the following comment regarding the development:

“The Sequoia India team is excited to support them as they build out a roadmap that will bring new utility and further composability to staked assets.”