Cosmos Network (ATOM)
Cosmos Network is a vision for a network of heterogeneous and sovereign blockchains connected through a trustless protocol called Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC). Cosmos Network is also referred to as the Internet of Blockchains, or the Interchain. The Cosmos Hub is a specific Blockchain that acts as a hub to route traffic between other Blockchains.
Cosmos Videos
Get started with Cosmos Network
Cosmos Network (ATOM)
The Cosmos Network is a decentralized network of independent, scalable, and interoperable blockchains, creating the foundation for a new token economy.
Website
Whitepaper
Source code
Explorer
Consensus: PoS-BFT
Hash algorithm: SHA 256
Block time: ≈7 seconds
Max supply: not set
Circ. supply: ≈191 Million
Block reward: 7% Yearly Inflation
Mainnet: 13th March 2019
Main use case:
Interoperability, General purpose & specific purpose chains
Community & Communication: Contact Interchain Foundation
Blog
Discord
Reddit
Twitter
The story of Cosmos
The Cosmos network addresses scalability, usability and sovereignty limitations of all blockchains trying to create a single platform that would fit all use cases. Cosmos began with the invention of Tendermint, the “gold standard” in proof of stake consensus, by Jae Kwon. Ethan Buchman joined him, wrote his thesis on Tendermint, and created All In Bits (dba Tendermint Inc) to push development forward. After coming up with the vision for an Internet of Blockchains they created the Interchain Foundation and conducted a fundraiser for the Cosmos Hub. Development progressed towards a launch of Cosmos’ first public proof of stake network in March 2019. 2020 is about finalizing the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol and launching the Cosmos Hub in Summer 2020.
More info about the value proposition can be found in this document.
Non-technical Cosmos onboarding resources
These resources help you to get to know the Cosmos ecosystem and history. You will understand how Cosmos works and how you can join the Cosmos network.
Get started with Cosmos network
How can you join and contribute
Check out this community page and sign up to the newsletter
Cosmos Onboarding Resources for technical people
These resources help you to get to know Cosmos network and Cosmos hub on a technical level and to start working with it. After going through these resources you are able to determine when it makes sense to use Cosmos, how to set up and run a node, network or application. Don’t forget to check out the tooling.
Get started with Cosmos
- Read the documentation
- Check out this tutorial on the Cosmos nameservice (+Slides)
- Check out this tutorial on the Scavenger hunt (+Slides)
- Check out the Cosmos SDK Github
- Get into the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC)
Find all Cosmos SDK tutorials here and information at the Developer Portal.
Available Tooling
The Cosmos SDK is a toolkit for building IBC enabled blockchains in Golang. There are SDKs available in Haskell (here) and in Javascript (here) as well.
How can you join and contribute
Tokenomics in Cosmos
The Cosmos Hub has a high inflation rate on a staking token (7-20%). This is to encourage all token holders to lock the token up in staking, thereby increasing security in the hub. The target rate of atoms locked up as collateral to secure the network is at least ⅔ of the total atom supply. Fees are paid on transactions in any token, these are the ultimate income to be expected by validators and delegators.
More information about Cosmos token economics can be found here.
Governance in Cosmos
The Cosmos Hub has an on-chain governance system that allows plain text proposals as well as parameter changes to be voted on. It uses a liquid democracy system so that votes can be delegated to different entities. Governance will soon include the ability to upgrade the binary running the blockchain with a governance proposal. A Cosmos governance working group was established and progress documented in this blog.
More about the governance procedure can be found here and in the forum.
The ecosystem
The Cosmos ecosystem is rapidly growing. The non-profit Interchain Foundation, All in Bits Inc (dba Tendermint Inc), and IRIS Foundation Ltd. drive adoption through development and a grant system. By now, the Cosmos ecosystem has a strong network of validators, Cosmos developers, contributors as well as apps and infrastructure projects from all around the world.
Important parties in the ecosystem
- Individuals
- Validators (e.g. Stake.Fish, Polychain, Dokkia Capital, Sikka Binance)
- Interchain Foundation
- Tendermint Inc.
- Iris Foundation Ltd.
Some projects can be found here.
Roadmap
In spring 2020, an adversarial testnet for IBC “Game of Zones” will be launched. In Summer 2020, the IBC is expected to launch and other zones such as Binance, Aragon, Loom, Terra, Althea, Kava, E-Money, Akash, Iris and Regen will be able to begin moving assets through the Cosmos Hub.