While this isn’t a Stride proposal, we’re chiming in as Stride contributors because this affects Stride as a member of the ecosystem, and we would like to clarify our view: Stride supports Hydro v1 treating all ATOM LSTs equally.
Over the past few days, there has been a flurry of discussion around Cosmos Hub’s upcoming Hydro protocol. As always, passionate community discussion is always a good thing, because it shows there are many people who deeply care about Cosmos Hub. The strength of the community is the strength of the chain.
As the Hydro forum post makes clear, Hydro will eventually be completely neutral regarding ATOM LSTs. Stride contributors are aware of and supportive of this eventual development of Hydro.
Informal Systems, the development company designing Hydro, likely chose a single ATOM LST in Hydro v1 temporarily to get it to market quickly (reduce the complexity of v1) and support an ICS chain while v2 is being developed.
The feedback from the community makes clear that they highly value neutrality from the outset. If it is desired by Cosmos Hub governance, then Stride contributors support launching Hydro v1 with full neutrality regarding ATOM LSTs from day one, so that all parts of Hydro that involve ATOM LSTs support multiple options. Since this has always been the stated eventual plan for Hydro, if Hub governance wants it then it makes sense to include it in Hydro v1.
In addition, from its initial announcement in May, a stated goal of Hydro has always been to recall existing Cosmos Hub POL deployments, so that ATOM can be redeployed via Hydro. Stride contributors have always been aware of and supportive of this goal.
We’re providing our thoughts on this matter as participants in the Cosmos ecosystem. But ultimately, the design of Hydro protocol is a decision that must be made by Cosmos Hub governance.