The Interchain Foundation (ICF) has announced an investment in liquid staking protocol Stride, backing the project’s next phase as it expands into decentralized exchange infrastructure on the Cosmos Hub. According to the announcement, the move will help Stride develop Stride Swap, described as the first IBC Eureka-powered DeFi platform on the Hub and a foundational liquidity layer for multichain activity across Cosmos.
Stride Swap positioned as a liquidity engine for Eureka
The new DEX will be deployed on Cosmos Hub and is intended to serve as a core liquidity venue for IBC Eureka. As additional Eureka-connected assets come online, Stride Swap is expected to let users swap assets such as ETH, SOL, and USDT against Cosmos-native assets including ATOM and USDC. The announcement also says the platform will help support onboarding and transfers for Ethereum L2s and other chains that do not have instant finality by providing liquidity for solvers and fillers.
ICF and Stride framed the development as an important step toward making Cosmos Hub a smoother multichain economic center. In that vision, Eureka provides the bridging rails and routing, while Stride Swap supplies the liquidity layer needed for seamless trading and broader DeFi composability across connected chains.
Development underway, core staking product remains in place
Stride said development of the DEX has already started and that the product is scheduled for release in the coming months. The protocol’s existing liquid staking offering will remain a standalone product, and STRD will continue as the protocol’s sole governance token. Planned DEX features include permissionless customizable hooks, multichain swaps, liquidity pools, built-in vaults, dynamic fees, and liquidity optimized for Eureka routes.
Stride will also work with Interchain Labs as a design partner for the Cosmos Hub’s upcoming permissionless VM. That environment is expected to allow developers to deploy multichain applications and services that can tap both Eureka’s distribution and Stride’s liquidity infrastructure.
Existing scale and future alignment with Cosmos Hub
Stride noted that its liquid staking protocol, launched in 2022, has become one of the core application blockchains in the Cosmos and IBC ecosystem. The announcement states that the protocol now serves more than 136,000 users and holds over $35 million in total value locked. Interchain Labs Co-CEO Maghnus Mareneck said Eureka opens access and routing to protocols across chains, while Stride is expected to provide the liquidity hub needed for seamless multichain trading.
Stride co-founder Riley Edmunds said the Cosmos Hub has been central to the project since its early days, and that Stride Swap reflects a renewed commitment to helping the Hub fulfill its role as Cosmos’ economic center. The announcement also said Stride Labs may explore additional integrations with the Hub, including possible ATOM buybacks and burns funded through protocol revenue, as well as deploying more products more natively on the Hub. The companies noted, however, that these remain forward-looking plans subject to business and technical conditions.
ICF added that the investment is intended to support an open and competitive ecosystem rather than limit it, leaving room for other DEX and DeFi platforms to emerge while ensuring Cosmos Hub and IBC Eureka users have access to a trusted liquidity option.