Interchain Foundation backs Stride to build IBC-native DEX on Cosmos Hub

The Interchain Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization founded to steward the Cosmos blockchain ecosystem, has invested in the liquid staking protocol Stride to create a decentralized exchange.

With this investment, Stride is set to develop Stride Swap, a decentralized exchange on the Cosmos Hub. The DEX will be optimized for the network’s latest upgrade, IBC Eureka , which offers interoperability with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains. The Interchain Foundation did not disclose the size of the investment.

Stride Swap will enable asset swaps between the Cosmos ecosystem and Ethereum, thereby supporting the expansion of DeFi on Cosmos. It will include permissionless vaults, customizable liquidity provision, and support for multichain bridging via IBC Eureka. 

The DEX is currently under development and is expected to launch in the coming months. It will complement Stride’s existing liquid staking product and be part of a broader effort to turn the Cosmos Hub into a central liquidity and application layer for the Cosmos ecosystem of several blockchains.

"This collaboration with Stride plants a seed for the new builders and projects to do just that, starting with one of blockchain’s core primitives: finance, now made fully multichain by Stride Swap and IBC Eureka,” said Josh Cincinnati, President of the Interchain Foundation’s Council.

The team behind Stride said it intends to implement other synergistic dynamics between Stride and the Cosmos Hub, which may include Cosmos (ATOM) token buybacks and burns through the Stride protocol’s revenue.

"With Stride Swap, we’re expanding our product suite while narrowing our focus to the chain that’s always been at the heart of our journey. IBC Eureka provides the rails to reach any chain, and Stride will provide the liquidity to trade seamlessly across them," Riley Edmunds, co-founder of Stride, said.

In 2022, Stride announced that it had raised $6.7 million in a seed round co-led by investors North Island VC, Distributed Global, and Pantera Capital. Stride's liquid staking platform hosts over $32 million in total value locked in the Cosmos ecosystem.