StakeStone

About StakeStone

StakeStone operates as a decentralized, omnichain liquidity infrastructure protocol, positioning itself as a foundational layer for the evolving multi-chain cryptocurrency landscape. Founded in 2023 by Charles K, the Singapore-based company aims to resolve the prevalent issue of liquidity fragmentation in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Charles K, a veteran with extensive experience in Web3, has led product development for centralized exchanges and hardware wallets, specializing in financial derivatives and cross-chain architecture. The company's inception was strategically timed with the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade and the proliferation of Layer 2 solutions, which created a need for a new class of full-chain, yield-bearing liquid assets.

The firm has secured significant financial backing, raising a total of $32 million across three seed rounds. A major funding round in November 2024 brought in $22 million, led by Polychain Capital with strategic investments from Binance Labs and OKX Ventures. This robust support from prominent venture capital firms underscores confidence in StakeStone's approach to liquidity solutions.

StakeStone's core business revolves around issuing liquid, yield-bearing tokens, primarily STONE for Ethereum and STONEBTC for Bitcoin. Users can stake their ETH or BTC and in return receive these liquid tokens, which represent their underlying staked assets plus accruing yield. This model allows asset holders to maintain liquidity and participate in other DeFi activities across various blockchains without forfeiting staking rewards. The protocol's revenue is generated through small fees on withdrawals and a bribe system where other protocols can incentivize liquidity providers. The business serves both individual crypto investors seeking to maximize yield and developer ecosystems requiring deep, efficient liquidity. Its architecture is designed to be non-custodial, ensuring users retain control over their assets.

The platform's flagship product is its suite of liquid staking tokens: STONE, SBTC, and STONEBTC. STONE is a non-rebase ERC-20 token, meaning the token balance in a user's wallet remains constant while its intrinsic value in ETH increases over time from staking yields. A key differentiator is the concept of "true liquidity," which allows users to redeem their assets at any time across multiple chains with minimal price impact, a feature facilitated by a proprietary PMM lending pool technology. The protocol employs intelligent, automated strategies to optimize yields by dynamically allocating the underlying assets to various high-return opportunities, such as different staking and restaking pools. Furthermore, StakeStone provides a developer hub with APIs and SDKs to encourage the creation of new applications on top of its liquid assets.