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💥All Eyes on Liquid Staking Derivatives as Shanghai Upgrade Nears💥
Following the Shanghai Upgrade, the Ethereum blockchain could potentially welcome a new cohort of stakers
February 02, 2023
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(Dinarian Note: Although this article FOCUSES on Ethereum and Solana, THINK "COSMOS" and "PERSISTENCE"... my point being LIQUID STAKING IS THE FUTURE OF STAKING and PERSISTENCE OWNS THAT LABEL in the COSMOS ECOSYSTEM! XPRT is Currently ONLY .63 🤔 )

The Ethereum Shanghai hard fork is less than two months away, and liquid staking derivatives (LSD) are gaining momentum in the cryptocurrency market.

Following Shanghai, users can withdraw ether locked up on the Beacon chain — opening up an exit for long-time Ethereum stakers.

Blockworks Research analysts note in a report that this upgrade is likely to encourage more ETH holders to lock up their assets over the long term, increasing pressure on stake rate — but it is possible that there could also be a dip in staking demands as withdrawals become available.

Alluvial co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Mike Taormina told Blockworks that the rise in popularity of liquid staking derivatives on Ethereum should come as no surprise, as it’s about more than the debut of withdrawals.

“Liquid staking also solves a real problem: When you lock tokens to participate in the security of the network, those tokens are illiquid,” he said.

Not so, with ether receipt tokens.

Liquid staking in proof-of-stake ecosystems

The ordinary staking process involves locking up cryptocurrency in a proof-of-stake network to support blockchain operations and enable transactions, while simultaneously allowing users to accrue staking rewards.

In the case of Ethereum, an individual user must deposit 32 ETH ($50,900) to the blockchain and activate the validator software to participate in staking.

As ETH holders often do not have enough funds or technical expertise to run their own validator node — now exceeding 510,000 worldwide — liquid staking protocols, including Lido, Rocket Pool and Frax, remove the barrier to entry by allowing ether holders to participate in staking without having to lock in any tokens.

This is often referred to as pooled staking, and users who participate are given ERC-20-compliant liquidity tokens that represent their staked ether, which they can hold in their wallets and use in other DeFi applications. But using decentralized exchanges, they can also sell back into normal unstaked ether at any time.

Of course, liquid staking is not only limited to the Ethereum blockchain. The Solana network has been actively looking at ways to grow its total value locked (TVL) — particularly following events related to FTX, which hit Solana hard — and liquid staking derivatives may address some of these challenges.

Marinade Finance, a non-custodial liquid staking protocol built on the Solana blockchain, is hoping to increase DeFi activity on its network by launching a program that will distribute its governance token MNDE to individuals and protocols in hopes of growing mSOL TVL

“There’s so much locked SOL that’s staking. It’s helping decentralization and validation, but it’s not helping liquidity, so what we want to see is some of that stake turn into liquidity — and help DeFi protocols — and liquid staking tokens is really the mechanism for that,” Brandon Tucker, a growth lead at the DAO, told Blockworks. 

Setting a new liquid staking standard

Following the Shanghai upgrade, Taormina believes that liquid staking tokens may become even more popular — driving increased confidence in the Ethereum blockchain and welcoming a new cohort of mainstream adopters

Ethereum has a much lower percentage of its token staked — less than 14% per Blockworks Research — compared to other blockchains, Taormina said.

(Dinarian Note: XPRT Persistence has OVER  75% Locked)

 

“There’s something holding Ethereum holders back from participating in staking, this is why the upgrade is so important,” he said. “The Shanghai upgrade will finally enable withdrawals and remove uncertainty…we think that more people will end up participating [in staking].”

In anticipation of a growth in staking participants, Taormina and his team at Alluvial are partnering with a handful of Web3 teams to design a new liquid staking standard.  

This new standard, dubbed ‘Liquid Collective,’ will be an enterprise-grade liquid standard built to attract enterprise-grade users to Web3.

This is important because it helps onboard a cohort of users that are on the sidelines that would be interested in staking but need experience to meet some minimum thresholds that aren’t currently met today,” Taormina said.

If you want to read more about the current state of liquid staking derivatives on Ethereum and their yield market share, you can subscribe to Blockworks Research and read their latest report at no charge for the next 24 hours.

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Zero-Knowledge Proofs On Stellar 🌟

Zero-Knowledge Proofs enable us to prove properties of data without revealing the data itself.

But how does this translate into real-world use cases for zk technology?

@james_bachini explains👇

https://stellar.org/blog/developers/5-real-world-zero-knowledge-use-cases

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🚨David Grusch on The Megyn Kelly Show🚨

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Stellar CEO Reveals Where Real Opportunity Lies in Crypto Market: Details

In a recent tweet, Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) CEO and Executive Director Denelle Dixon defines what "real opportunity" is in blockchain as a new financial future beckons.

The SDF CEO was reacting to a recent Bloomberg report on Bank of New York Mellon Corp (BNY), Nasdaq, S&P Global and iCapital participation in a new $50 million investment round by Digital Asset Holdings. This comes as some of Wall Street’s biggest names embrace the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies to handle traditional assets.

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Real opportunity defined

While Wall Street’s biggest names betting on blockchain might be one of the most significant adoption milestones in the digital asset market, Dixon defines what real opportunity is and what it is not.

According to the SDF executive director, real opportunity is not replicating old systems on new rails but rather building open networks that fundamentally expand global finance participation.

"But the real opportunity isn’t replicating old systems on new rails—it’s building open networks that fundamentally expand who gets to participate in global finance. That’s the opportunity," Dixon tweeted.

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Stellar eyes privacy upgrade

A new protocol upgrade is on the horizon for the Stellar network: X-Ray, which lays the groundwork for developers to build privacy applications on Stellar using zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography.

The protocol timeline testnet vote is anticipated for Jan. 7, 2026, while the mainnet vote is expected for Jan. 22, 2026.

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XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network

XDC Network's acquisition of Contour Network marks a silent shift to connect the digital trade infrastructure to real-time, tokenized settlement rails.

In a world where cross-border payments still take days and trap trillions in idle liquidity, integrating Contour’s trade workflows with XDC Network Blockchains' ISO 20022 financial messaging standard to bridge TradFi and Web3 in Trade Finance.

The Current State of Cross-Border Trade Settlements

Cross-border payments remain one of the most inefficient parts of global finance. For decades, companies have inter-dependency with banks and their correspondent banks across the world, forcing them to maintain trillions of dollars in pre-funded nostro and vostro balances — the capital that sits idle while transactions crawl across borders.

Traditional settlement is slow, often 1–5 days, and often with ~2-3% in FX and conversion fees. For every hour a corporation can’t access its own cash increases the cost of financing, tightens liquidity that could be used for other purposes, which in turn slows economic activity.

Before SWIFT, payments were fully manual. Intermediary banks maintained ledgers, and reconciliation across multiple institutions limited speed and volume.

SWIFT reshaped global payments by introducing a secure, standardized messaging infrastructure through ISO 20022 - which quickly became the language of money for 11,000+ institutions in 200 countries.

But SWIFT only fixed the messaging — not the movement. Actual value still moves through slow, capital-intensive correspondent chains.

Regulated and Compliant Stablecoin such as USDC (Circle) solves the part SWIFT never could: instant, on-chain settlement.

Stablecoin Settlement revamping Trade and Tokenization

Stablecoin such as USDC is a digital token pegged to the US Dollar, still the most widely used currency for trade, enabling the movement of funds instantly 24*7 globally - transparently, instantly, and without the need for any intermediaries and the need to lock in trillions of dollars of idle cash.

Tokenized settlement replaces multi-day reconciliation with on-chain finality, reducing:

  • Dependency on intermediaries
  • Operational friction
  • Trillions locked in idle liquidity

For corporates trapped in long working capital cycles, this is transformative.

Digital dollars like USDC make the process simple:

Fiat → Stablecoin → On-Chain Transfer → Fiat

This hybrid model is already widely used across remittances, payouts, and treasury flows.

But one critical piece of global commerce is still lagging:

👉 Trade finance.

The Missing link is still Trade Finance Infrastructure.

While payments innovation has raced ahead, trade finance infrastructure hasn’t kept up. Document flows, letters of credit, and supply-chain financing remain siloed, paper-heavy, and operationally outdated.

This is exactly where the next breakthrough will happen - and why the recent XDC Network acquisition of Contour is a silent revolution.

It transforms to a new era of trade-driven liquidity through an end-to-end digital trade from shipping docs to payment confirmation – one infrastructure that powers all.

The breakthrough won’t come from payments alone — it will come from connecting trade finance to real-time settlement rails.

The XDC + Contour Shift: A Silent Revolution

  • Contour already connects global banks and corporates through digital LCs and digitized trade workflows.
  • XDC Blockchain brings a settlement layer built for speed, tokenization, and institutional-grade interoperability and ISO 20022 messaging compatibility

Contour’s digital letter of credit workflows will be integrated with XDC’s blockchain network to streamline trade documentation and settlement.

Together, they form the first end-to-end digital trade finance network linking:

Documentation → Validation → Settlement all under a single infrastructure.

XDC Ventures (XVC.TECH) is launching a Stable-Coin Lab to work with financial institutions on regulated stablecoin pilots for trade to deepen institutional trade-finance integration through launch of pilots with banks and corporates for regulated stable-coin issuance and settlement.

The Bottom Line

Payments alone won’t transform Global Trade Finance — Trade finance + Tokenized Settlement will.

This is the shift happening underway XDC Network's acquisition of Contour is the quiet catalyst.

Learn how trade finance is being revolutionised:

https://www.reuters.com/press-releases/xdc-ventures-acquires-contour-network-launches-stablecoin-lab-trade-finance-2025-10-22/

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