Onomy Enters Modular Era: ONEX Chain Now Live on Mainnet via ICS
The Onomy DAO is excited to announce it has officially become the 2nd security provider chain within the Cosmos ecosystem, after launching its Onomy Exchange consumer chain.
The DAO voted in favor of launching the Onomy Exchange consumer chain on mainnet, with a turnout of 88.7%, backed by a voting power of 85.1% of staked NOM.
In 2023, the Cosmos Hub underwent a protocol upgrade, enabling Replicated Security. Before, to launch an app-chain in Cosmos, you had to make use of the Cosmos SDK, a blockchain creation toolkit, then invest significant resources into onboarding validators that would secure and decentralize the network. While worth the effort for builders wanting to take advantage of the benefits ensued by application-specific blockchains, it represented a bottleneck for early-stage teams that were stretched thin.
The initiative was well received by the Cosmos Hub DAO, who voted overwhelmingly in favor, and was soon followed by the first independent consumer chains launching with the shared security of the Cosmos validator set.
As a layer-1 determined to build the next wave of consumer apps and be a core pillar of the Internet’s Financial System, Onomy needs products that enable adoption, advance on-chain trading, and simplify asset management, all whilst being interoperable with the rest of the on-chain realm.
In June 2023, the Onomy DAO voted in favor of upgrading the Onomy Network to support Replicated Security. Since then, intensive iterations and multiple testnets were carried out to prepare the network for the launch of its first consumer chain, the Onomy Exchange — a first-of-its-kind hybrid, cross-chain DEX fusing AMM liquidity pools with an orderbook UI supporting advanced orders, and thus creating the CEX experience on-chain.
After significant community debate, the DAO unanimously agreed that Replicated Security would provide significant benefits to core, Onomy-built consumer chains, as well as sovereign chains looking to join the Onomy Ecosystem, with a turnout of 80.9% of staked NOM supply voting 100% in favor. Out of 88 IBC-connected chains, Onomy Protocol and the Cosmos Hub are the only two security providers.
Onomy’s products “have the potential to play a pivotal role in Cosmos,” Bitfinex & Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement.
The Onomy Validator Set, consisting of leading firms Cosmostation, Ledger, Citadel One, Chorus One, Strangelove, Stakecito, Decentrio, and others have all agreed to support Onomy’s Replicated Security Expansion. Furthermore, new Onomy entrants like Cosmos development & validator firms Strangelove and Decentrio, were approved by the DAO and have committed to provide technical support, write interchain tests, assist with development & maintenance of the Arc Bridge Hub, set up new IBC relayers & paths, and assist with the Replicated Security roll-out.
With Replicated Security, consumer blockchains lease security from a provider chain. Their transaction blocks are produced by the provider chain’s validator set. As the term implies, the provider chain validators are obligated to secure the consumer chain (if such is voted by the DAO).
The DAO vote to deploy Replicated Security on a new consumer chain can be imagined as a service agreement — one where specific terms are set and agreed on by $NOM holders. There’s an infinite number of terms that could be negotiated — software can enable close to anything the DAO wants to do in search for the right financial model, with the core goal to align and unify Forex, RWA, and payment-related app-chains within a singular, thesis-driven ecosystem.
The integration of replicated security and the launch of the first consumer chain, enables all to build on Onomy, attracting new participants and app-chains, growing the number of teams working in the Onomy Ecosystem, diversifying the application set, and facilitating seamless cross-chain communication and interoperability amongst all app-chains while providing interoperability with Cosmos IBC, EVM, and more via the Arc Bridge Hub. Validators in the Onomy Validator Guild (OVG) will secure additional app chains, and staking rewards plus fees from consumer app chains may be allocated toward parent chain validators and delegators of NOM.
In result, this also increases incentives for more validators to join Onomy (as a parent chain), encourages new community members to join the ecosystem, enhancing the number of teams and peer review efforts being conducted on the Onomy Network. “Consumer chains aren’t just passengers — they’re sailors who can help steer ships towards major ecosystem growth”, said Lalo Bazzi, founder of Onomy.
About Onomy
Onomy Protocol is a growing ecosystem enabling the Internet Financial System (IFS) that blends DeFi with seamless consumer applications across real-world assets (RWAs), payments, DeFi, and the $6.6T/Day Forex market.
It is the second provider chain in all of Cosmos via an Interchain Security upgrade, after the Cosmos Hub, and is interoperable with both IBC and EVM ecosystems. Onomy is poised to be the home for the next wave of consumer apps.
