Axelar and Neutron Bring Lido’s Liquid Staking Token to Cosmos

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, USA, September 14th, 2023]

The collaboration aims to enhance cross-chain interoperability and support the expansion of wstETH and other assets in the Cosmos ecosystem

Neutron, the most secure cross-chain smart-contracting platform for DeFi, and Axelar, the full-stack interoperability layer for Web3, have been selected by Lido, the leading liquid staking provider, as the preferred technology bridging partners to launch Lido’s wrapped liquid staked ETH (wstETH) on Cosmos.

With 30+ projects already looking to integrate, Neutron and Axelar have each committed 1% of their respective network genesis supply in token incentives to build liquidity for wstETH through DeFi applications within the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) ecosystem and future expansion to other L1 ecosystems.

“We are excited to be part of the effort to bring one of the biggest liquid staking tokens, Lido’s staked ETH to the Cosmos ecosystem. It is a reflection of the value of cross-chain support and our commitment to bringing liquidity and users to the Cosmos ecosystem. The collaboration between Neutron, Axelar, and the Lido DAO is a great example of how blockchain projects can come together to foster innovation and seamless interoperability,” said Avril Dutheil, Core Contributor to Neutron.

Lido Finance is the leading provider of liquid staking solutions and their liquid staking token, staked ETH, currently has a $13.8B market cap. Lido staked ETH is available in two flavors: a rebasing token, stETH, and a wrapped, auto-compounding token, wstETH, which will be used to bridge to Cosmos. The journey of this new token begins with its bridging from the Ethereum ecosystem through Axelar to Neutron, making it available to the entire IBC ecosystem of chains, including Cosmos, Cronos, Sommelier and major DeFi protocols such as Osmosis and dYdX.

“Axelar is proud to lead the launch of wstETH into the Cosmos ecosystem. The cross-chain expansion of the largest liquid staking token will be secured by AXL and enhanced by full-stack interoperability,” said Sergey Gorbunov, co-founder of Axelar. “Through Squid’s cross-chain liquidity router we can optimize asset bridging, significantly speeding secure deposits, presenting a different experience from the lengthy delays required for current bridged deployments.”

This initial bridging is just the start of the journey for wstETH on Cosmos. Once wstETH has been deployed on Cosmos and a cross-chain governance implementation has been developed, Axelar and Neutron will hand over ownership, administration, and management of the bridge to Lido DAO.

If accepted by governance, the Lido DAO will be able to upgrade the bridge contracts on the Neutron network, for example, to switch or add bridge providers to the solution, providing greater control to the Lido DAO to upgrade the bridge to further security and reflect its long-term vision for stAsset bridging.

About Axelar:

Axelar is the full-stack interoperability layer for Web3. The network enables blockchain as a new kind of development platform, integrating diverse networks into a seamless “Internet of blockchains.” Axelar is programmable and decentralized, secured by a proof-of-stake token, AXL. Application users access any digital asset or application, with one click. Developers work with a simple API and access an ecosystem of tools and service providers.

More about Axelar: axelar.network 

About Neutron

Neutron is the most secure cross-chain smart-contracting platform. It combines the security of the Cosmos Hub, a top 10 blockchain by staked capitalization with bleeding-edge cross-chain infrastructure to enable DeFi applications to securely scale across a growing network of 51+ interconnected blockchains.

About Lido

Lido is a multi-chain staking solution, that provides a simple and secure way to earn interest on your digital assets. With a mission to democratise staking, Lido lets users stake their digital assets without the need to lock them or maintain hardware. Lido empowers users to put their staked assets to use, offering rich integration with decentralized applications across multiple blockchain ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Kusama, Polkadot and Polygon.