ATOM sees limited upside after Cosmos Hub’s upgrade

• Cosmos Hub’s Liquid Staking Module just went live, bringing new utility to ATOM.
• ATOM price has jumped 3% in the past 24 hours after seeing a slight increase on Wednesday.

Cosmos Hub, the interchain service provider of the Cosmos Network and blockchain platform powered by the native token ATOM, had a major upgrade this week. This is after the platform’s Liquid Staking Module went live on September 12, adding to ATOM’s utility within the DeFi ecosystem.

Cosmos Hub’s liquid staking model is now live

With Cosmos Hub’s upgrade and unlocking of the Liquid Staking Module, ATOM holders have fresh access to new yield opportunities. LSM means tgose with ATOM can now liquid-stake already staked ATOM tokens without havig to wait for the 21-day unbonding period to elapse.

The v12 upgrade is successfully completed ⚛️

The Liquid Staking Module is live on the Cosmos Hub!

With LSM the Hub unlocks new dynamics within the ATOM Economic Zone.

Users can now directly liquid-stake their already staked #ATOM without waiting for the unbonding period. pic.twitter.com/IdIyr8nsdL

— Cosmos Hub ⚛️ (@cosmoshub) September 13, 2023

This is good news for ATOM holders as it means they can participate more in the DeFi ecosystem and still earn from staking yield. One can unstake ATOM and directly liquid-stake it, this time with no 21-day restriction.

The community should however note that an initial cap of 25% has been set on the total amount of ATOM that can be liquid-staked. Other measures to “mitigate liquid staking risks” have also been instituted via governance-controlled parameters.

“As an additional security feature, validators who want to receive delegations from liquid staking providers would be required to self-bond a certain amount of ATOM,” Cosmos Hub announced.

ATOM price outlook

The market’s reaction to the upgrade was a bump in the price of ATOM. Amid the buy pressure, the token’s value rose to highs of $6.80 on Thursday. CoinGecko data shows the cryptocurrency is currently 3% up in the past 24 hours.

ATOM needs to bounce off the highlighted horizontal support or risk a nosedive to below $2. The main upside hurdle would be near YTD level.