Phew... if anything points to the fact that we are still in a bit of hype phase for cryptocurrencies, it is the steady flow of IEOs that are being put out by Binance, MXC, and Gate.io. Of course, the torrent from earlier months has dropped down to a mere steady flow... but it means that in most weeks, there is at least one or more IEO on these exchanges.... and with Gate.io, there is the always endless startup ones!

However, despite the ease of use of the Asian based exchanges, I'm always going to have a bit of a soft spot for the CoinList offerings, which have generally done pretty alright! Plus, I am mostly able to get into the priority queue... so, I can generally expect a purchase spot in each of the rounds.

So, next up on the CoinList diary of IEOs is pSTAKE. pSTAKE addresses the problem of locking up tokens for staking. When you lock tokens, they are illiquid... meaning that you can't respond to market conditions quickly... or if you just feel like having the tokens on hand!

This is often made significantly worse by the incredibly long unlocking times which can range from 7 days (BSC) to 28 days (Polkadot and Cosmos)... and sometimes, you don't have a huge need to unlock the tokens, but you just want to jiggle your staking or switch wallets! I've done that a few times... Of course, the long unlock times are to preserve the security of blockchains, so it is a necessary evil... but it is still annoying!

So, pStake aims to tokenise staking... in that your stake is represented by a liquid token, which can then be easily traded for unstaked tokens to allow you quick access to the underlying assets. Kucoin did something similar with the POL token (Proof of Liquidity), but in a centralised manner on their Pool-X platform.

The mechanics of the cross-chain staking and their 1:1 token representations requires a bridge... which unfortunately seems to put the security on the Ethereum mainnet? Great for security, but a touch less good for gas fees at the moment... however, it is likely that the ERC20 tokens are only created on Ethereum, and other blockchains can use the pegged token equivalents on their own cheaper chains.

So, instead of staking natively on the respective blockchains, it appears that unstaked (free) native tokens are represented by the ERC20-pegged tokens on a 1:1 basis... and these are the tokens that are "staked" with the pSTAKE protocol in the Cosmos ecosystem in exchange for the stkTokens which represented the staked tokens.

Fungibility for the native (unpegged) tokens is obviously a critical part of the protocol, you want to be able to exchange the pegged tokens for the "real" token! Seeing as multiple validator groups are backing the pSTAKE protocol, the slashing (and rewards) are shared between all stkTOKEN holders... which does have the effect of reducing the risk and responsibility in choosing a "good" validator. It means that the APY will be averaged out... but if validators go offline, it isn't such a giant problem... and you don't have to grapple with the unlock period to recover your stake! So, an averaging of risk and reward... and a less critical problem with validator selection. I think that most people would prefer that!

So, for this IEO... only a single round... and the priority list appears to be first allocated to existing pSTAKE users before going to high KARMA CoinList users. Ah well, you can't fault a protocol for wanting to reward their loyal early users... as long as they don't get Sybil-ed to death. I hope they are keeping an eye out on dodgy behaviour...

Otherwise, there is a familiar feel to the whole thing. A cliff in a couple of months followed by a linear unlocking... As usual, don't expect this to be a quick dump and profit opportunity. CoinList tends to list a bit later than expected... and often the tokens are trading on other exchanges before CoinList IEO participants receive their allocations... that is well know, and CoinList sales are really for long term visions. Still, that never stops people from taking up their Twitter pitchforks... as they see their 1000x investment plummet to a mere 100x.

Curiously enough, this sale has the largest number of accepted funding methods that I have seen! ALGO and SOL are the two newcomers... I wonder if this will be a going thing? Not that I would really use them, I usually stockpile USDT/USDC on exchange for these CoinList sales.

So, pSTAKE is the actual token that is going on sale here... not the pegged pTOKENS or the stkTOKEN staking respresentations. pSTAKE is the governance and will be staked to incentivise good behaviour.

Now... the larger portion of the earlier sale (22%) went to Seed investors and an "Alpha" Launchpad.... however, the larger seed sale (20%) has a much longer vesting period than the CoinList public sale. However, I suspect that their 6 month cliff might have started a little bit earlier... which might put it roughly in the same spot as the retail cliff in January. Hard to tell without a little bit more research. More interestingly is the Alpha Launchpad which is completely liquid... I'm more than a little bit curious about who got into that round!

So, at listing, there is going to be a decent amount of liquid tokens floating around in comparison to the unlocked retail from the CoinList IEO. However, keep in mind that I consider that these CoinList sales to be much longer time lines than your usual dump on listing sales that occur on other platforms. Plus, I don't think that CoinList will list in a timely manner... but again, that doesn't matter if you aren't hoping to trade on that first few seconds of crazy volatility!

What is quite reassuring (to me at least)... is that there are number of familiar and well-known names in the validator space that are taking part in the pSTAKE project. In fact, I already stake with a few of them already... keep in mind that staking with pSTAKE will mean that you are spreading out the rewards and risks... and these validator pools have had good uptime, low fees and little in the way of slashing. So, something that is quite reassuring.

In the end, I think that this sort of decentralised staking liquidity is going to be quite useful for people who don't want to hunt around in the weeds of the internet to learn how to stake natively on different blockchains... and then to also research their validators to make sure they are reliable and paying their rewards out... and to keep up with them, in case their fees rise or the hit some downtime and get slashed. A one stop shop for all of this stuff is going to be quite appealing for many people... so, I do consider this project to be an interesting piece of infrastructure for Proof of Stake chains.

I'm not convinced that I'm going to manage to win a purchase spot though... I think that the CoinList KARMA users are going to be prioritised behind early users of the pSTAKE ecosystem... and although this time, I'm on the wrong side of that balance... it is the right thing to do. Still... holding out hope that I can win a purchase spot!

I can also be found cross-posting at:
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Handy Crypto Tools

Ledger Nano S/X: Keep your crypto safe and offline with the leading hardware wallet provider. Not your keys, not your crypto!
Binance: My first choice of centralised exchange, featuring a wide variety of crypto and savings products.
Kucoin: My second choice in exchanges, many tokens listed here that you can't get on Binance!
FTX: Regulated US-based exchange with some pretty interesting and useful discounts on trading and withdrawal fees for FTT holders. Decent fiat on-ramp as well!
MXC: Listings of lots of interesting tokens that are usually only available on DEXs. Avoid high gas prices!
Huobi: One of the largest exchanges in the world, some very interesting listings and early access sales through Primelist.
Gate.io: If you are after some of the weirdest and strangest tokens, this is one of the easiest off-chain places to get them!
Coinbase: If you need a regulated and safe environment to trade, this is the first exchange for most newcomers!
Crypto.com: Mixed feelings, but they have the BEST looking VISA debit card in existence! Seriously, it is beautiful!
CoinList: Access to early investor and crowdsale of vetted and reserached projects.
Cointracking: Automated or manual tracking of crypto for accounting and taxation reports.
Stoic: A USD maximisation bot trading on Binance using long-term long strategies, powered by the AI/human system of Cindicator.
StakeDAO: Decentralised pooled staking of PoS assets.
Poloniex: One of the older regulated exchanges that has come into new ownership. I used to use it quite a lot, but have since stopped.
Bitfinex: Ahhh... another oldie, but a goodie exchange. Most noted for the close affiliation with USDT and the Basic "no-KYC" tier!