Hailed as the āinternet of blockchainsā, Cosmos is an ever-expanding network of independent, scalable, and interoperable blockchains.
Cosmos makes blockchains powerful and easy to develop with Tendermint BFT and the modularity of the Cosmos SDK. This is already being adopted by several huge L1 chains including Terra, Crypto.Org, Cronos, Huobi Ecochain, Thorchain, Secret and many more.
Cosmos enables blockchains to transfer value with each other through IBC and Peg-Zones, while letting them retain their sovereignty. Cosmos allows blockchain applications to scale to millions of users through horizontal and vertical scalability solutions. Cosmos Hub is the first hub among many hubs that has launched within the Cosmos Network of sovereign blockchains, and ATOM is the Cosmos Hub's staking token.
In 2021, the Cosmos devs launched of the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, which is the Cosmos standard for blockchain interoperability, marking the completion of the Cosmos whitepaper. Now that the whitepaper is done, the Cosmos team is shifting their attention towards accruing more value for the ATOM token (finally!).
Unlike typical L1 coins like SoLunAvax, ATOM isnāt used as the default token used for transaction fees across the different Cosmos appchains.
At the center of the ecosystem lies The Cosmos Hub, an App-Chain secured by validators staking ATOM, the native token of Cosmos. The Cosmos Hub offers three primary use cases which can accrue value to ATOM:
TheĀ Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocolĀ is a general communication standard devised to connect Cosmos appchains together, allowing for interoperability in the entire Cosmos ecosystem.
Gravity DEX will be built on the Cosmos Hub, bringing cross-chain liquidity in the Cosmos ecosystem. This is in direct competition with Osmosis, another Cosmos Hub that seeks to be the DEX for all IBC transfers. The winner between the two would be able to accrue significant value from the ecosystem.
Emeris, the main Gravity DEX frontend (and in the future will become an aggregator for cross-chain DeFi protocols) is still in beta. Should be able to ship in Q2.
Note: A criticism of the Gravity DEX is that it violates the principle of Hub Minimalism.
Interchain security makes it possible for āchild chainsā to have the option to allow Atom validators to lease out security to appchains that opt-in for a price. New appchains offload this resource intensive endeavor of setting up validator nodes to Atom stakers and instead focus on building the core product. This is a win-winānew apps can reach a faster time to market, while Atom validators can earn more fees supporting multiple āchild chainsā, instead of only staking The Cosmos Hub.