Recently Wetez is preparing for the Cosmos GameofStake. Wetez has also been running on the Cosmos test network. In the upcoming December, the probability of release of Cosmos mainnet is very high. Like Tezos, Wetez will also dedicate to be a genesis validators on Cosmos(Interchain Foundation).
It took a while for us to study the consensus of Cosmos. In the beginning, I felt that the PoS of Cosmos and the PoS of Tezos were not much different, but as I dig deeper, I found out some stunning parts. A little obvious feeling is that Cosmos is more comprehensive than my imagination in the system integration part. Cosmos goes deeper, but is slightly rough and rushed; On the other hand, Tezos is rich in the foundation, the fundamental code is quite structured. There is no serious problem after the mainnet launch. Tezos is moving step by step.
I guess what makes difference is the location of each team. The team of Tezos is in Paris, and Cosmos is originated from Toronto, San Francisco, and Berlin. Culture shapes different attributes.
Comparing the PoS mechanism of these two outstanding projects, there are different parts, same parts and each of projects has its own advantages and disadvantages:
- Nothing At Stake and on-chain governance
Both of them use the deposited bond and slash punishment method to solve this important problem, Nothing At Stake, during PoS 1.0 to PoS 2.0. The definitions of Slash fo each project is different. Cosmos will punish validators if they don’t vote. Tezos stresses the on-chain governance but Tezos didn’t include the vote to their slash mechanism. In the comparison of governance implementation, Cosmos is more radical. During the test net period, Wetez did not vote for the proposal and therefore lost lots of token because of Slash. A bloody lesson for us. (Fortunately, it is only the test coin lol).
Tezos just launched their vote module and I am looking forward to the interesting experiment of the idea of Futarchy. Cosmos’s voting process will follow the mainnet, and we can discuss more by that time. Compare governance difference now, Tezos emphasizes the percentage of voting and participation. Furtarchy can somehow solve the problem of participation, but predicting market of voting is hard to be put into practice.（If you are interested in idea of Furtarchy, check this medium）In summary, Cosmos’ on-chain governance is relatively mediocre. Tezos is more radical and we look forward to see how Tezos achieves it.
2. Delegation in PoS consensus
This analysis is helpful for cryptocurrency holders. Like Tezos, Cosmos has additional bonus rewards for nodes to ensure the stability of the network every year. The holder of the Atom can share and obtain the right of bonus rewards by delegating to validators. If they don’t perform their right of delegation, the exisiting Atom will be diluted because of annual inflation in Cosmos system. The situation is quite scary for Cosmos. Currently seen in the white paper describes that in the case of two thirds of token participation, there will be 7% of inflation. In the case of less than two-thirds of token participation, the maximum inflation can be 22%
According to our experience of Tezos, if it is still in a bear market like now, deposited Atom can exceed more than two thirds of total amounts in the fourth month after the mainnet launch. If it is in the bull market, it will be hard to say. The liquidity will be relatively high. For Atom holders, the dividend reward of delegation is higher in the early stage so don’t forget to delegate your Atom.
3. Deposited Bond details
Tezos’ delegation market has long-term hidden danger. In the early days, bakers shouted to community that they can pay the deposited bond for delegators. However this leads to bad habits continuing to this day and if you google the over-delegated problem, you will find more discussion. The way how Cosmos does is more thoughtful. If you want to entrust the node for delegation service, clients need to undertake the bond lost on their own.
On Cosmos, deposited bond is a concept of the pool. If the validators do evil or are not competent to maintain the blockchain, the bond will be deducted as punishment. Validators and Clients bear the loss together. On Tezos, the deposited bond is the concept of the block, if validators pay the bond for their clients, only validators will undertake the cost in each block.
Validators as a crucial part of PoS consensus. It derives into two different kinds of PoS because of the deposited system.
4. Bond-PoS
Cosmos officials tend to call their consensus as Bond-PoS. Personally I think that Cosmos’s consensus is an enhanced version of DPoS with BFT and bond mechanism. EOS is based on DPoS consensus, and there are 21 validators. Cosmos add more validators to 100 in the early stage, validators is chosen from staking amount rather than vote and validators needs bond as deposit.
Cosmos has the most stringent requirement for validators in history. It requires validators should be companies, should build their own hardware, should vote for all proposals, and etc. Being a validator on Cosmos is not easy. Community responsibility and competence of maintaining a node are indispensable.
5. Block confirmation
If Cosmos is an enhanced version of DPoS, it will definitely be faster, and the actual test result proves it. Tezos is fixed for 60 seconds per block. Cosmos is about a few seconds but it is not fixed yet. It shouldn’t just compare TPS because they are based on different mechanisms. The validator can only propose one block in each round. During that round, there will be a prevote and pre-commit phase. Block is confirmed by passing two-thirds of participants in each phase. If it is successful, it will be very fast. However, If it is not successful, it needs to restart one round again. It is hard to say how long one block confirmation will be until the real situation happens.
Tezos is different. Tezos can propose multiple blocks at the same height, and choose the most endorsements block finally. Cosmos cannot propose multiple blocks. If one block propose fails, it will start again. Of course, both projects have slash punishment for double signs, which will help prevent forks and prevent the chaos in BCH community from happening.
There are still many aspects to compare. Maybe we will discuss it in the next article. If you get curious about these two projects. We recommend that read both Cosmos and Tezos white paper and combine with the result of blockchain scanner. If you have any questions or doubts want to discuss with us, follow our twitter and pm us.
In general, Tezos and Cosmos have a good maintenance method for network security. Although the implementation details of the consensus are different, I don’t think these are the key to the success of the public chain. Success depends on the ecology. On ecology, Cosmos is one step ahead, creating Ethermint, a 1:1 anchored Ethereum side chain which provides a convenient funnel to connect Ethereum ecosystem.
However Tezos aim for the long run. The ecology is not started yet. In this stage, Tezos foundation is funding education organization and universities to foster new developers for Tezos community.
Both projects still have a long way to go.
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