Navigating the Internet of Blockchains
An Introduction to the Cosmos
The Cosmos, also known as the “Internet of blockchains”, is a network of sovereign chains interconnected via the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol, IBC. These chains, often referred to as Cosmos zones, are typically built upon the Cosmos SDK and powered by the Tendermint Core consensus engine, offering superior modularity and absolute transaction finality.
This report will discuss the various components of the Cosmos stack, the present and future ecosystem, and developer perspectives from various core development teams building in the Cosmos.
Tendermint
Serving as the consensus protocol for many Cosmos zones, Tendermint is a toolkit comprised of the Tendermint Core consensus engine and the Application Blockchain Interface, also known as ABCI. These components allow Tendermint to differ from other consensus protocols in its modularity, near-instant transaction finality, and security assurances.
Tendermint Core
Tendermint Core is a Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT) consensus engine that requires ⅔ network consensus to commit a block and continue the chain. Blockchains powered by Tendermint Core can tolerate a fault of less than ⅓ of the network while ensuring chain continuity. In the event that more than ⅓ of the network is faulty, and ⅔ consensus cannot be reached, the blockchain will halt until ⅔ consensus is reached. As a result, Tendermint prioritizes chain safety over chain liveness, ensuring absolute finality.
However, as a validator-based consensus solution, Tendermint does have disadvantages. Tendermint-powered chains in the Cosmos operate a limited active validator set with only the top X validators by delegated stake participating in network consensus and, as a result, limiting decentralization.
Application BlockChain Interface (ABCI)
The Application BlockChain Interface (ABCI) allows Tendermint Core to provide consensus for any blockchain virtual machine by functioning as an interface data channel connecting the two independent consensus and application layers.
Unlike traditional monolithic blockchain architecture, where the consensus and application layers are not modular, ABCI offers the ability to decouple a blockchain’s consensus and application layers, promoting modularity and developer accessibility. Using the ABCI, developers can leverage the Tendermint Core consensus engine using the programming language and execution environment of their choice.
Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC)
The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) is an interoperable messaging protocol that allows blockchains to communicate trustlessly and pass messages between each other. IBC is fundamental to the Cosmos stack, ensuring that Cosmos zones are interoperable.
The IBC protocol consists of the transport layer (TAO) and the application layer (APP).
The transport layer, TAO, stands for transport, authentication, and ordering, and serves as the infrastructure layer for the IBC protocol, ensuring that data packets are correctly sent to the counterparty chain in the correct order while maintaining authenticity. This layer includes IBC light clients and channels. IBC light clients are responsible for tracking and mirroring the consensus state for the counterparty blockchain and updating its internal state following a state change in the counterparty blockchain. IBC channels are connections between the receiving and sending blockchain, allowing for the respective chains to relay messages to each other.
The application layer, APP, enables applications leveraging the IBC transport layer. This includes the ICS-20 standard, which defines fungible cross-chain tokens and allows users to send and receive tokens across various IBC-enabled chains.
Cosmos SDK
The Cosmos Software Development Kit (Cosmos SDK) is the open-source framework for building and launching a Cosmos chain. The framework is a popular choice among Cosmos developers, with many Cosmos zones currently based on the Cosmos SDK.
The Cosmos SDK leverages Tendermint and includes composable and interoperable base modules allowing developers to build a blockchain without starting from scratch. For example, modules such as the Governance module (x/gov) contain on-chain governance primitives such as proposal submission, deposits, and voting. In addition to the Cosmos SDK base modules, developers can develop custom modules for their chain’s particular needs.
Ecosystem — Zones
Today, the Cosmos consists of over 50 active Cosmos zones interconnected by hundreds of IBC channels. Despite many zones in the Cosmos, just a handful of chains dominate the 30-day IBC volume activity.
Osmosis is the most active IBC chain by 30-day IBC volume, managing over $350M in IBC volume in the past 30 days. This is not surprising as the Osmosis blockchain hosts the largest decentralized exchange in the Cosmos.
The 30-day IBC transactions follow a similar top-heavy distribution pattern; however, Band takes the lead as the most active IBC chain by IBC transactions, with over 1.2M IBC transactions in the past 30 days.
Ecosystem Mapping
While we covered the majority of active Cosmos zones in the ecosystem table, we will only cover a handful of Cosmos zones in detail. The subsequently mentioned Cosmos zones were selected to present a high-level overview of the diversity of zones in the Cosmos ecosystem. There are many meritable Cosmos zones that we could not cover in the scope of this report.
Cosmos Hub
The Cosmos Hub mainnet launched in March 2019 as the first blockchain in the Cosmos. The Cosmos Hub acts as an interchain hub, helping route transactions as the Cosmos grows and providing security to consumer chains via interchain security.
Hub and Spoke Model
The hub and spoke model is integral to the Cosmos Hub’s role as the interchain hub. As the number of zones in the Cosmos grows, the IBC connections required between each zone to maintain interoperability with every other zone grows quickly and is inefficient. The hub and spoke model designates certain Cosmos chains as hubs that can act as routers for all zones connected to the hub.
For example, using the hub and spoke model, zones can simply connect to the Cosmos Hub and relay messages to any other zone that is also connected to the Cosmos Hub, with the Cosmos Hub serving as an intermediary router. Without a hub, zones would have to establish IBC channels and connections with every other zone instead of maintaining limited connections and channels with the hubs.
Interchain Security v1
In addition to routing IBC messages for connected zones, the Cosmos Hub is also positioning itself to help bootstrap nascent Cosmos zones.
Launching and securing a new Cosmos zone is challenging as bootstrapping the crucial validator set is difficult. Furthermore, new zones often have lesser economic security than larger, more established Cosmos chains.
Interchain security v1, also known as Replicated Security, hopes to alleviate these challenges by allowing Cosmos Hub validators to run additional validators on participating consumer chains using the value stake on the Cosmos Hub. In doing so, consumer chains will be able to inherit the Cosmos Hub’s superior economic security.
Cosmos Hub Roadmap
v9 Lambda Upgrade
The Lambda upgrade took place on March 14th, 2023, enabling Replicated Security for the Cosmos Hub. Following the upgrade, interested consumer chains must submit a Cosmos Hub governance proposal to participate.
Atom 2.0
The Atom 2.0 white paper, unveiled in September 2022, included a new vision for the Cosmos Hub. The vision included additions such as the Interchain Scheduler and Interchain Allocator.
The Interchain Scheduler is a cross-chain block space marketplace with a goal to further the efficiency of the MEV and block space market in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the Interchain Allocator hopes to facilitate economic collaboration between the broader Cosmos ecosystem by allocating capital from the Cosmos Hub to new Cosmos chains. The allocator will consist of the covenant and rebalancer, allowing for establishing cross-chain agreements and existing portfolio rebalancing.
However, the community proposal to implement the paper was rejected by the community via proposal #82.
General Purpose Zones
General purpose Cosmos zones typically provide developers with the base-level primitives to develop and deploy dApps. General purpose zones often include a smart-contract execution environment and are not optimized for a singular application.
In addition to covering select general-purpose Cosmos zones, we have also highlighted ecosystem dApps selected using qualitative and quantitative metrics, including but not limited to social media and community engagement, smart-contract use, and total value locked (if applicable).
Evmos
Initially launched in March 2022, Evmos is an EVM-compatible Cosmos chain that allows developers to write and deploy smart contracts in an EVM execution environment. However, shortly following the initial launch, a failed network upgrade resulted in a chain halt. The chain later relaunched in late April.
The Evmos blockchain incorporates modules such as x/evm, which defines the Ethereum Virtual Machine as a Cosmos SDK module, and x/erc20, which allows conversions between Cosmos assets to EVM assets.
Evmos Ecosystem
Cevmos
Celestia, a modular blockchain network, is building Cevmos, a modular stack comprised of a settlement chain for EVM rollups. This settlement chain will utilize Celestia’s rollup architecture and Evmos’ EVM functionality and chain security.
Orbit Market
Launched in April 2022, the Orbit Market is an NFT marketplace on Evmos. The marketplace supports ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens and implements features such as collection offers and royalties. Orbit marketplace has currently onboarded 32 NFT collections.
SpaceFi
SpaceFi is a cross-chain platform deployed on Evmos and zkSync with several applications, including SpaceSwap, a decentralized exchange, and Starter, an incubation platform. The platform currently holds over $1.1M in total value locked, accounting for 66% of the total value locked on the Evmos blockchain.
Juno
Launched in October 2021, Juno is a WASM-compatible blockchain allowing developers to write and deploy CosmWasm smart contracts in a WASM execution environment. Currently, the most popular CosmWasm contract type on the Juno blockchain is the CW20 contract, also known as the CosmWasm token contract.
Moneta Upgrade
The Juno blockchain initially launched without CosmWasm functionality which was later implemented via the Moneta Upgrade in December 2021. In addition to integrating CosmWasm, the Moneta upgrade enforced a minimum validator commission and enabled the Authz and Feegrant modules.
Juno Ecosystem
DaoDao
DaoDao is a Juno DAO building a suite of open-source composable tooling for launching and maintaining DAOs on Juno. The platform currently hosts many Juno DAOs, such as the Juno Growth Fund and Core Root. In addition to the existing functionality, the platform will soon include DAO payroll tooling to streamline compensation for contributors.
Loop Finance
Originally deployed on the Terra blockchain, in June 2022, Loop Finance announced it was moving its decentralized exchange and NFT marketplace to the Juno blockchain. The decentralized exchange supports both native Cosmos assets and Juno-native CW-20 assets.
At the time of writing, the LOOP CW-20 contract is one of the most popular WASM contracts on the Juno blockchain, with over 37,000 executions.
WYND DAO / JunoSwap
Launched in January 2023, the WYND DEX is a decentralized exchange on Juno. The WYND DEX supports both native Cosmos assets and Juno-native CW-20 assets and is self-governed by the WYND DAO with regular proposals to adjust DEX parameters. The exchange currently holds over $6M in total value locked.
In December 2022, RAW DAO, the DAO governing JunoSwap, previously the largest DEX on Juno by total value locked, passed a proposal to migrate JunoSwap liquidity to the WYND DEX.
Kava
Launched in November 2019, Kava utilizes a co-chain architecture allowing developers to develop and deploy applications on the Ethereum or Cosmos Co-Chain. The Cosmos and Ethereum Co-Chains are connected using Kava’s Translator Module. This dual-chain architecture was introduced to mainnet via the Kava 10 upgrade in May 2022.
Kava Ecosystem
Curve Finance
Curve Finance, a popular AMM on Ethereum, deployed to Kava’s Ethereum Co-Chain in September 2022. Curve allows users to swap ERC-20 assets using Curve’s liquidity pools. Curve currently holds over $14M in total value locked on the Kava blockchain and nearly $5B across all blockchains Curve is deployed on, including Kava.
Kava Lend
Kava Lend is a lending protocol allowing users to borrow supported digital assets. The protocol employs Loan to Value (LTV) percentages to determine the total value of assets that a user can borrow. Kava Lend utilizes 50% LTV percentages for all digital assets except USDX, which utilizes an LTV percentage of 25%. The protocol currently holds over $75M in total value locked.
Kava Mint
Kava Mint is a DeFi protocol that allows users to mint USDX using other digital assets as collateral. Similarly to Kava Lend, Kava Mint employs LTV percentages to determine the total USDX a user can mint given the digital asset they use as collateral. At the time of writing, this figure varies between 66.67% and 90.01%. Kava Mint currently holds over $95M in total value locked.
Secret Network
Launched in early 2020, Secret Network is a privacy-focused Cosmos chain that enables private smart contracts. To achieve this privacy, Secret Network utilizes Trusted Execution Environments, ensuring network nodes can verify transactions without gaining access to sensitive transaction data. Secret Network smart contracts are based on CosmWasm with the addition of private metadata.
Secret Ecosystem
Alter Network
Alter network is a private messaging application that utilizes Secret Network’s smart contracts and encryption to provide private communication while allowing users to retain control of encryption keys. The application also supports private and group messaging with the option of anonymity.
Shade Protocol
Shade protocol is a suite of privacy-centric DeFi dApps built on the Secret Network using privacy-preserving smart contracts. Applications include the Silk stablecoin, Silk Pay, Shade Bridge, ShadeSwap, ShadeLend, ShadeDerivatives, Shade Bonds, and Shade Governance.
Sienna Network
Sienna Network is a privacy-centric DeFi protocol built on Secret Network. Applications include SiennaLend and SiennaSwap. SiennaSwap allows private swaps helping prevent transaction front-running as transaction details are not publicly viewable. Similarly, SiennaLend allows private lending and borrowing. The protocol currently holds over $4M in total value locked.
Future General Purpose Zones
Gnoland
Gnoland is a general-purpose smart contract execution environment based on the GnoVM. Developers will be able to write and deploy smart contracts on the Gnoland chain using the Gnolang language. To further developer accessibility, Gnolang is based on the Go programming language allowing developers to write smart contracts for Gnoland without having to learn an entirely new language.
Penumbra
Penumbra is a privacy-focused Cosmos blockchain that implements several privacy-centric features such as private delegation, voting, and default asset shielding. Interconnected with the rest of the Cosmos via IBC, assets entering the Penumbra zone are shielded and therefore made private by default, and assets leaving the Penumbra zone are unshielded and no longer private. Moreover, unlike most Cosmos chains, Penumbra is not built upon the Cosmos SDK.
ZSwap
ZSwap is a private decentralized exchange built on Penumbra. The exchange supports sealed-bid batch auctions ensuring transaction amounts are private until the batch is finalized, preventing transaction front-running.
Application-Specific Zones
Application-specific chains, also known as appchains, are optimized for a particular or close group of applications. Optimizing a chain for its specific use case can allow functionality not possible via general-purpose chains without significant tradeoffs.
Axelar
Launched in early 2022, the Axelar blockchain helps facilitate the Axelar cross-chain interoperability gateway protocol. Axelar’s Cross-Chain Gateway Protocol (CGP) helps facilitate message routing between interconnected blockchains by allowing validators to read transactions via the gateway smart contracts and subsequently write valid transactions to the destination chain’s gateway smart contract.
One of the use cases for Axelar’s cross-chain interoperability protocol is cross-chain asset transfers. Axelar supports bridging between EVM and Cosmos blockchain and is the canonical bridge for the Osmosis decentralized exchange. At the time of writing, Axelar has facilitated nearly 350,000 cross-chain transactions with over $1.7B in total transfer token volume.
Osmosis
Launched in June 2021, the Osmosis blockchain hosts the largest decentralized exchange in the Cosmos: Osmosis. The Osmosis exchange currently holds over $180M in total value locked with over $18M in daily trading volume at the time of writing. The Osmosis exchange is self-governed, with the community able to vote on various key parameter changes, such as liquidity provider incentive adjustments via regular on-chain proposals.
In addition to supporting Cosmos assets via IBC, as discussed earlier, Osmosis supports EVM assets via Axelar, Osmosis’ canonical EVM bridge. The permissionless Osmosis Frontier also supports EVM assets bridged through other EVM bridges.
CosmWasm Integration
In December 2021, the Osmosis community voted on proposal #107 to integrate CosmWasm via the x/Wasm module into the Osmosis blockchain. Confio completed the integration in March 2022. The CosmWasm integration allows developers to deploy CosmWasm smart contracts on Osmosis.
Superfluid Staking
Launched in February 2022 via the Osmosis v7 Carbon Upgrade, superfluid staking allows users to stake LP tokens to help bolster the economic security of the Osmosis blockchain. Prior to superfluid staking, tokens locked in liquidity pools could not be re-staked on-chain. Superfluid staking differs from liquid staking, where synthetic versions of staked assets are created to be used in DeFi applications.
Regen Network
Launched in April 2021, the Regen blockchain, also known as the Regen Ledger, hosts the Regen Marketplace. The Regen Ledger introduces two novel Cosmos modules for its use case: the Ecocredit and Data modules, which enable ecocredit issuance and ecological data management.
These modules are foundational to the Regen Marketplace. Launched in October 2022, the Regen Marketplace is a decentralized marketplace that allows organizations and individuals to purchase, trade, and retire ecocredits. Organizations and individuals can purchase ecocredits for specific projects. Ecocredit holders can then retire their ecocredits to offset their carbon footprint.
Stargaze
Launched in October 2021, the Stargaze blockchain hosts the Stargaze NFT marketplace and launchpad. The platform currently hosts over 1,200 NFT collections and is governed by the community via regular on-chain proposals. The Stargaze platform also includes tools such as the Stargaze Studio to simplify the process of creating an NFT collection on Stargaze.
Stargaze Studio
Stargaze Studio is a no-code platform that allows creators to create and manage NFT collections on Stargaze. In addition to launching an NFT collection, the application allows creators to query a variety of collection data. The application is available for both testnet and mainnet environments.
Stride
Launched in September 2022, the Stride blockchain is optimized for cross-chain liquid staking. The Stride blockchain incorporates custom modules, such as the StakeIBC Module. The StakeIBC module is responsible for minting and burning liquid staking representation of assets (stAssets) and managing the corresponding native assets on their respective chains.
The Stride liquid staking protocol currently holds over $15M in total value locked and supports five Cosmos assets.
Interchain Security
The Stride blockchain plans to utilize Interchain Security v1 and derive economic security from the Cosmos Hub. Resultingly, Stride will become one of the first consumer chains in the Cosmos.
Future Application-Specific Zones
dYdX V4
In June 2022, dYdX announced that dYdX V4 would be built as a sovereign Cosmos chain. Motivations for building a Cosmos chain for dYdX V4 include the ability to customize and optimize the base-level blockchain to fit the specific needs of dYdX V4.
For example, within the dYdX chain, network validators will operate an in-memory order book that is not committed to consensus and is consistent with all other validators. This will allow for orders to route through and be matched by the network in real-time, with final trades posted on-chain in a transparent and decentralized manner. Using this architecture, dYdX hopes to maintain high throughput while ensuring decentralization.
DYdX recently announced the completion of milestone 3 and the beginning of the private testnet with plans for mainnet by the end of September.
Sei
As a sector-specific DeFi-focused blockchain, Sei is neither general-purpose nor application-specific. However, for the purpose of this report, we will classify Sei as an application-specific chain as it is optimized for trading-based applications such as decentralized exchanges. These optimizations include Twin-Turbo consensus, a native order-matching engine, Tendermint modifications, parallelization, and frequent batch auctioning. These design choices allow decentralized exchanges built on Sei to offer superior order throughput, finality, and scalability, all important considerations when building a decentralized exchange.
Cosmos Ecosystem (Shared Infrastructure and Tooling)
The Cosmos consists of many unique and sovereign chains. As a result, Cosmos chains often do not share the same tooling and infrastructure with all other chains in the Cosmos ecosystem. In the scope of this report, we will cover the shared infrastructure provided by Cosmostation, Keplr, and Map of Zones.
Cosmostation
Cosmostation provides a variety of shared infrastructure and tooling for the broader Cosmos ecosystem. This includes the Cosmostation block explorer, Mintscan, and the Cosmostation wallet.
Mintscan
The Mintscan blockchain explorer allows users to query blockchain data such as transaction and block history, IBC relayer activity, and WASM/EVM smart contract details (if applicable). The Mintscan Cosmos block explorer currently supports over 50 Cosmos chains.
Wallet
The Cosmostation wallet is a non-custodial wallet that allows users to store Cosmos digital assets and interact with the Cosmos ecosystem. In addition, to sending and receiving Cosmos assets, the wallet includes delegation and voting functionality. The Cosmostation wallet is available as a mobile app, chrome extension, or web wallet. The web wallet also supports the Ledger cryptocurrency hardware wallet.
Keplr
The Keplr wallet is a non-custodial Cosmos wallet with token transfer, delegation, and voting functionality. Keplr currently supports over 30 chains and includes hardware wallet support for the Ledger NanoS/X and the Keystone hardware wallet. Keplr is available as a Chrome or Firefox extension and mobile app. The Keplr Chrome extension wallet currently has over 700,000 users.
Map of Zones
Map of Zones is a Cosmos ecosystem analytics tool that allows users to query data, including IBC volume and transfers, total transactions, and active users, over a specified time frame for supported zones. Users can also visualize this data in a 2D or 3D web. Map of zones currently supports over 50 Cosmos zones.
Interviewing Cosmos Builders
As part of this report, we reached out to the core development teams of all the aforementioned Cosmos zones. We asked teams questions regarding their experience with building in Cosmos and their outlook on the future of Cosmos.
Building in the Cosmos
We began the interview by asking teams what drove their decision to build in the Cosmos. While teams often stated that several factors drove their decision, the two most mentioned were sovereignty and a production-ready Tendermint implementation.
Cosmos Sovereignty
Riley Edmunds (core contributor to Stride and co-founder of Stride Labs) noted that Cosmos’ sovereignty allows developers to retain full control over the entire blockchain stack allowing for blockchain logic customization, which is not possible on traditional monolithic blockchains.
Sunny Aggarwal (Osmosis Core Development Team) also shared a similar sentiment and mentioned that the ability to control the entire blockchain stack allowed Osmosis to integrate innovative features, such as allowing users to pay transaction fees in any token they choose as the Osmosis blockchain is aware of the Osmosis DEX built on top of the chain.
Additionally, Nic Z (Evmos Core Development Team) spoke about Cosmos’ sovereignty-preserving security model, which offers an opt-in approach to chain security. Cosmos chains can self-derive security using their own validator set but also have the option to opt-in to the security provided by other chains, such as the Cosmos Hub via Interchain Security.
Tendermint
Aaron Craelius (Cosmos SDK Lead Architect and Regen Network CTO) mentioned that choosing a consensus solution with a low energy footprint, such as Tendermint, was important to the team, especially as mainstream monolithic blockchains such as Ethereum, were proof-of-work at the time.
Nic Z (Evmos Core Development Team) spoke about Tendermint’s fast finality, which he argued was imperative to building superior user experience as consensus solutions with probabilistic finality require users to wait for several confirmations until deemed final.
Darren (Penumbra Labs Team) mentioned that it was important that Tendermint was production-ready and relatively plug-and-play, allowing the team to build a Tendermint-powered Cosmos chain without having to use the Cosmos SDK.
Tradeoffs
We also asked teams about any tradeoffs they had to make by building in Cosmos. Several teams cited the Cosmos SDK’s customizability and broader developer accessibility as tradeoffs when building in Cosmos.
Cosmos SDK
Riley Edmunds spoke about the tradeoffs between forking the Cosmos SDK or using the current mainline SDK release. While forking the SDK allows teams to modify and incorporate additional functionality, maintaining an SDK fork requires additional development resources and can carry additional security risks.
Nic Z mentioned that additional Cosmos SDK customizability comes with the tradeoff of further deviating from a shared infrastructure standard in the Cosmos. Requiring specialized infrastructure for highly customized chains is neither efficient nor scalable.
Developer Accessibility
Several teams also cited developer accessibility as a tradeoff primarily driven by insufficient documentation. Insufficient documentation increases the entry barrier for new builders from other ecosystems.
Sunny Aggarwal stated that the current documentation for the Cosmos stack isn’t as good as the existing documentation for the EVM stack; however, it is being continually improved by Cosmos core development teams such as Osmosis, Confio, and many more. Aaron Craelius shared a similar view, stating that the current Cosmos documentation contains gaps and has room for improvement.
Additionally, Nic Z discussed how Cosmos documentation standards are a result of the number of contributors in the ecosystem and believes that documentation will continue to improve over time as the ecosystem grows.
Ecosystem Gaps
During the interviews, teams also spoke about current Cosmos ecosystem gaps. The most mentioned gaps were the lack of oracles and liquidity fragmentation in the Cosmos.
Oracles
Riley Edmunds stated that the Cosmos ecosystem lacks a canonical oracle and needs a better oracle system to promote and truly enable Cosmos DeFi. Nic Z further echoed this sentiment, stating that Cosmos needs multiple on-chain and off-chain oracles.
Liquidity Fragmentation
Nic Z spoke about liquidity fragmentation in the Cosmos as multiple representations of bridged assets are scattered across various Cosmos chains, leading to an inferior user experience. Darren shared a similar view, who stated that current Cosmos stablecoin liquidity is fragmented and voiced a need for native Cosmos stablecoins.
Looking Ahead in the Cosmos
Additionally, we asked teams about what they were looking forward to in the Cosmos.
Sunny Aggarwal said he is excited about Mesh Security as the creator and one of its leading proponents. He is also looking forward to privacy in the Cosmos.
Riley Edmunds said he was excited about Stride utilizing Replicated Security and becoming one of the first consumer chains to consume economic security from the Cosmos Hub. He is also looking forward to Mesh Security with plans for Stride to eventually transition to Mesh Security in the future.
Aaron Craelius said he is looking forward to continual improvements to the Cosmos SDK to further developer experience and performance, such as working towards adding swappable consensus functionality to the SDK in the future. Swappable consensus would allow developers to seamlessly swap Tendermint with another consensus solution, furthering SDK modularity.
Nic Z said he is looking forward to Cosmos chains continually innovating and functioning as an extension of current chains, for example, further EVM and transaction throughput improvements on Cosmos.
Lastly, Darren said he is looking forward to the IBC ecosystem maturing and projects not traditionally considered as Cosmos projects joining the ecosystem.
Advice for New Builders
Lastly, we asked teams to offer advice for new Cosmos builders.
Riley Edmunds advised new developers and builders to look for the right community to build with and not build alone.
Sunny Aggarwal emphasized that developers should focus on the user experience and make interacting with their application engaging.
Darren mentioned that it is important to understand that there is not a singular tech stack for building in Cosmos and that developers should consider deploying applications to existing Cosmos chains rather than developing and maintaining their own. Nic Z echoed this, asking developers to consider how much sovereignty matters to their application and gauge other tradeoffs before deciding to build their own Cosmos chain or deploy on an existing one.
Lastly, Aaron Craelius suggested that new builders stay up-to-date on current Cosmos development as they continue to move in a direction to make building Cosmos chains and modules easier.
Conclusion
Cosmos allows developers to build interoperable chains while preserving sovereignty.
Building in Cosmos allows developers to build chains with interoperability and sovereignty without sacrificing either. As a result, developers can implement novel features and optimize their chain for their specific use case while remaining interoperable with the rest of the Cosmos.
The Cosmos lacks shared infrastructure.
The diversity within the Cosmos with multiple execution environments and specialized chain optimizations prevents chains from sharing infrastructure. A lack of shared infrastructure requires integrators to build specialized infrastructure for specific chains, imposing an additional barrier to entry.
The Cosmos SDK is a great starting point for developers building their own chain.
The Cosmos SDK is a popular choice for developers looking to build a Cosmos chain. The SDK’s modularity allows developers to build custom modules and incorporate additional functionality for their own chain’s use case. Moreover, with continual updates and improvements, the Cosmos SDK will likely remain popular among Cosmos developers.
Developer accessibility is a current limitation in the Cosmos with insufficient documentation.
Current documentation for new developers looking to build in the Cosmos is insufficient. This hinders adoption and is likely one of the reasons the Cosmos ecosystem has not seen expansive ecosystem growth relative to other ecosystems. However, documentation is improving and is not a fundamental challenge that cannot be overcome over time.
While the Cosmos today is not as mature or polished as other leading ecosystems, its merits as an interoperable yet sovereign stack are clear, evidenced by the growing number of developers and new Cosmos chains slated to launch in the near future. With continued improvements to the Cosmos SDK, IBC user experience, and developer accessibility, Cosmos should continue attracting new developers and users over time.
Special thanks to Arun Devabhaktuni, Jonathan Allen, Keivan Samani, Aaron Craelius, Darren, Nic Z, Riley Edmunds, and Sunny Aggarwal for their contributions to this report.
This report is intended for general information and discussion only. It is not a full analysis of the matters discussed and may not be relied upon as legal or other professional advice. The information contained herein may be subject to future change due to the evolving nature of the laws and regulations relating to blockchains generally and we do not intend to update this document to reflect such changes. At the time of publishing, the author and one or more of the contributors may hold a significant position in tokens issued by the referenced Cosmos chains. This report is not intended to promote the tokens of any of the aforementioned blockchains.
