Stader — Whale Army AMA Session
Stader is a non-custodial smart contract based staking platform that helps you conveniently discover and access staking solutions
https://staderlabs.com
Guest of the AMA session:
Amitej Gajjala, CEO
Q
What is the story behind Stader, how and what idea took you to where it is?
Amitej Gajjala
We have a very interesting story behind Stader. Sid (my co-founder and CTO) and I have known each other for 15 years now. We had done 2–3 start-up gigs earlier.
Sid being a veteran in crypto, pulled me onto the scene a couple of years ago. I went into a study zone for 6 months before I made up my mind regarding the space. And in the begininig of 2021, we had decided to start building infrastructure for staking. We have seen that most staking is inconvenient and very basic. The entire staking eco-system has the potential to host multi-trillion dollars of economy and we wanted to the AWS equivalent that is going to power this economy.
In a nut shell, we aspire to be the key building block (infra-middle layer) of staking economy targeting retail, institutions and exchanges customers.
To begin with, we have build our first product on Terra called Stake pools and Liquid staking on Terra (LunaX). Currently, Stake pools have about 4.3 M Luna TVL in a week.
Q
How is it different or unique to other similar protocols in the space?
Amitej Gajjala
1. There is no other protocol that is building the staking primitives like Stake pools. Ideally blockchains themselves should build it like Solana stake pools. But we are building this for several blockchains.
2. On top of stake pools, we are building Yearn-style strategies on staking rewards, air drops -> automating entire staking rewards management, building launchpads, gaming on staking rewards
3. Additionally we are building liquid staking on top of these pools. Using our infra, any one can easily build a liquid staking protocol within 1–2 weeks. Imaging an exchange like Huobi using our staking contracts and deploying them on their own validators giving them access to all DeFi solutions on their staking rewards.
Q
Talking about some of your major investors, I guess it was pretty easy to attract them to such a great project. Are Solana investors? They are due to be the next chain to support Stader correct? And are there many more in the pipeline?
Amitej Gajjala
Yes. Solana Foundation is an investor along with Terra foundation, Near foundation etc.
Yep. Several notable investors are keen to join us in the future round.
Q
How does one earn Stader right now and what is the difference between the three live staking pools.
Amitej Gajjala
1. Participate in Stake pools community farming at terra.staderlabs.com -> Can stake with any of the 3 live pools and farm SD tokens with Luna staking rewards
2% of SD tokens are set aside for it.
2. Participate in Liquid staking that is going live in a few days. You have to stake Luna, mint LunaX and provide Luna <> LunaX in liquidity pool to farm SD tokens. 1–2% SD tokens can be farmed for 2 months after launch
3. Farmed SD tokens will have 6 months vesting after 2 months of farming.
Post farming, more rewards are in store for long-term stakers.
Q
What will bring value to the SD token itself, do we see any pools where we can have Stader staked and can eye it as our long term investment
Amitej Gajjala
We have a carefully designed tokenomics. Validators and delegators can stake SD tokens. Staked SD tokens by validators will give them preferential delegations. All staked SD tokens will be used to provide slashing insurance.
Additionally, SD token stakers will get access to governance, voting on protocol policies like fees, pool selection, criteria and additional SD tokens as incentives for long term SD stakers.
Q
What gave you the idea to start stader. Was it for the money, or to make a change?
Amitej Gajjala
We are builders and love building things that millions can use. Our vision is to bring 1 Bn+ stakers into crypto
Q
Is it going to be a market place for all the top blockchains in future?
We can align our long term goals and how would SD help us achieve it ?
Amitej Gajjala
Yes. We want to be present across all major PoS blockchain networks. Potentially building cross-chain ETFs. e.g. Imaging you investing in a ETF composed of 50% Eth, 20% Sol, 20% Luna etc. and the underlying assets are staked and earning staking rewards and they also being liquid too.
Q
Could you explain for the novice of liquid staking, how are you able to provide us with rewards without locking the LUNA? I think it’s more complex than it sounds
Amitej Gajjala
For staking with our liquid staking pool, you will not receive any rewards. You will receive rewards only if you provide LP of Luna <> LunaX
Q
Is it possible to withdraw luna early and what happens if we continue staking after the 2 month lock up
Amitej Gajjala
You should continue staking for long-term to really get the price appreciation of blue chip assets. You can withdraw any time. If you withdraw within 2 months, there is a small 1% penalty.
If you withdraw between 2–8 months, then you will vest only 50% of unvested tokens. Rest will be distributed to other stakers.
Q
How being an Indian entrepreneur feels like In this space , how will Stader drive the value for upcoming Indian projects and Indian ecosystem?
Amitej Gajjala
It definitely feels great. I am personally helping some founders with guidance and mentoring.
Q
Terra struck me as the best interoperable blockchain, where every dApp seems to work with each other in one big symbiotic relationship. Was Stader built with the same mentality? And if so, what can you tell us about the possible synergy with other Terra apps? Thank you!
Amitej Gajjala
Yes. As YFI for rewards, we have to be inter-operable and may be cross-chain in the future.
Q
What makes Stader uniquely “stader-ian”? Apollo and Spectrum, for example, have similar use cases but approach it from different angles. What is Stader’s unique angle?
Amitej Gajjala
They are actually DeFi but we are Staking + DeFi.
PoS staking i mean and quite unique and different.
Q
How many other blockchain ecosystems do you envision to be in 2022?
Amitej Gajjala
We plan to support as many PoS networks as possible. We plan to at least support 5–6 blockchain in the next 6–9 months.
Amitej Gajjala
I think one of our long-term moats will be building an ecosystem of developers and strategists who will continue to build on Stader.
Additionally, our institutional and B2B/ exchange focus makes us sticky with these customer segments and hard to replicate for any other protocol.
This is an edited version of the AMA session — the full version you can find by this link:
https://t.me/whalearmy/976137
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