Astronauts, welcome to the December edition of Cosmos biweekly!
First of all, Cosmos Hub service providers, users, delegators and validators, the Cosmos Hub 3 software is complete and ready to launch! Proposal for Cosmos Hub upgrade has passed with an overwhelming 99.66% of stakers voting YES and takeoff is scheduled for December 11th, 2019 at block 2,902,000. All aboard!
The Cosmos ecosystem moves fast. A lot has happened since the last issue! IRIShub DeFi App support improved with new functions is now live. The team also connected the Rainbow Wallet to Binance DEX, which included a Binance airdrop for 500k IRIS tokens. Terra mainnet will be upgrading to Columbus-3 via a hard fork at block 2530000 on December 13th. This week Terra surpassed 700k accounts. MemeChat, the first mobile messenger dedicated to serving Mongolia now supports Terra payments through MemePay. TruStory testnet is live. Forbole is ready to scale and looking for investors. Regen Network conducted an incentivized testnet and posted results encouraging validators to prep for mainnet and learn how rollout is going to go. Akash announced an early validator and provider promotion to earn token bonuses for spinning up early providers, customers, and participating in the testnet. Cypher Core has also recently published a Project Spotlight on Akash. Althea is working on another method of penetrating home internet markets for low service areas with home phone routers. THORChain delivered front-end updates, staking launch updates, and more. The Kava mainnet is live and producing blocks. Corestar receives Interchain Foundation grant to build random beacon on Tendermint. Cyber releases their WP for their search engine project built on Cosmos. A collaboration of Open Market and Starname Network was announced. Chorus One is back on track with a new podcast episode talking Ethermint with Greg and Austin from ChainSafe. Give it a listen to learn all about the challenges of porting the EVM to the Cosmos SDK, Chainsafe’s work with Aragon, and more! Why did the Aragon team decide to build Aragon Chain on Ethermint using Cosmos SDK? What is Ethermint good for and what are the competitive advantages that come along with it? Find out these and more in the story behind the “why” by the ChainSafe team in our report below.
As for the social side, Zaki Manian (Tendermint team) and Dean Tribble (Agoric) joined the Staking Hub AMA to discuss Cosmos IBC and Game of Zones (GoZ). GoZ will test and train operators of IBC with 100,000 ATOMs in rewards, likely beginning in January 2020.
And last but not least, this week a new validator “Binance staking” appeared. Now they’re staking 5m Cosmos ATOMs. No official announcement or possibility to stake ATOMs on Binance so far, so stay tuned for more information soon!
Development
Github metrics:
Community-driven testnet for software upgrades
Proposal for Cosmos Hub upgrade has passed with an overwhelming 99.66% of stakers voting YES and takeoff is scheduled for December 11th, 2019 at block 2,902,000.
Figment Networks (figment.network )
Full proposal: ipfs.io
Decision:
We are signalling that:
1. The Gaia 2.0.3 implementation is aligned with the list of high-level changes approved in Cosmos Hub 3 Upgrade Proposal A.
2. We are prepared to upgrade the Cosmos Hub to cosmoshub-3 based upon
a. Commit hash: 2f6783e298f25ff4e12cb84549777053ab88749a;
b. The state export from cosmoshub-2 at Block Height 2902000;
c. Genesis time: 60 minutes after the timestamp at Block Height 2902000.
3. We are prepared to relaunch cosmoshub-2
a. In the event of:
i. A non-trivial error in the migration procedure and/or
ii. A need for ad-hoc genesis file changes
iii. The failure of cosmoshub-3 to produce two (2) blocks by 180 minutes after the timestamp of Block Height 2902000;
b. Using:
i. The starting block height: 2902000
ii. Software version: Cosmos SDK v0.34.6+ github.com
iii. The full data snapshot at export Block Height 2902000;
c. And will consider the relaunch complete after cosmoshub-2 has reached consensus on Block 2902001.
4. The upgrade will be considered complete after cosmoshub-3 has reached consensus on Block Height 2 within 120 minutes of genesis time.
5. This proposal is void if the voting period has not concluded by Block Height 2852202.
What’s important about the Cosmos Hub 3 upgrade?
This will be the first major Hub upgrade. Some of the noteworthy changes include the items signalled in previous governance proposals:
- Activate the Community Pool — enable governance to spend funds from the community pool (full proposal)
- Don’t Burn Deposits for Rejected Governance Proposals Unless Vetoed — if a proposal gets rejected without being vetoed, the deposits will be returned to the depositors (and if a proposal fails to meet quorum, its deposit will still be burned) (full proposal)
- Increase Max Validator Set Size to 125 — (full proposal)
New videos:
Evidence handling in Tendermint
In this talk Tess Rinearson, Marko Baricevic, Zarko Milosevic, Shivani Joshi, and Ethan Buchman discuss evidence handling in Tendermint
Awareness and social encounters
Cosmos and Interchain were at ETHWaterloo:
Staking Hub: Cosmos Game of Zones AMA:
Zaki Manian (Tendermint team) and Dean Tribble (Agoric) joined the hosts on November 5tth, 2019 to discuss Cosmos IBC and Game of Zones (GoZ). IBC enables blockchains to exchange value and data. GoZ will test and train operators of IBC with 100,000 ATOMs in rewards, likely beginning in January 2020.
Quick Takes:
- IBC enables blockchains to exchange value & data
- Game of Zones (GoZ) incentivizes the Cosmos community to learn to operate IBC relayers and test its functionality & security
- Validators, wallet operators, and app developers are likely to participate
- GoZ may begin in Dec, but likely January and last for three weeks
- Each stage of the game will teach & reward different IBC-related operations
- Prizes total 100,000 ATOMs, funded by the ICF, likely judged by Zaki & Dean
- Head to this section to read about how to prepare for GoZ
Cosmos India had a meetup in Bangalore:
Upcoming events:
December 13th, 2019: Learn about Binance chain, TrustWallet, Tellor, Agoric, and Cosmos in BitTemple San Francisco, San Francisco, USA.
Finance
The Interchain Foundation (ICF) raised $17 million in April 2017 to shepherd the development of the Cosmos network.
“To date, we still have over 1,400 BTC, over 50,000 ETH and just over 20 million ATOMs in the treasury,” ICF director Arianne Flemming says.
At today’s prices, that’s worth over $104 million. And that’s even after the nonprofit deployed $25 million in capital to fund over 50 projects.
Cosmos validators
Information from Mintscan.io:
Top 10 validators:
Cosmos Markets
Information is taken from Coinmarketcap.com.
Information from Coinlib.io:
Cosmos DEX demo:
The launch of the first Cosmos DEX demo is an initial exercise at exploring, ideating, and creating the next set of decentralized exchange projects that can be built on the Cosmos SDK.
Bidesk Lists Cosmos (ATOM).
Roadmap
Cosmos Hub Roadmap:
Governance Milestones
The following milestones will require voting by on-chain governance.
Proposal: Atom Transfers
2019–04–10 An upgrade proposal may be created on the Cosmos Hub to allow ATOM to be transferred to other Cosmos addresses. Read more »
Proposal Passed: Atom Transfers
2019–04–17 Success! The proposal to allow ATOM to be transferred to other Cosmos addresses passes.
- Proposal: IBC
future TBD
An upgrade proposal may be created on the Cosmos Hub to add support for IBC, the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol. IBC will allow other Cosmos SDK-based blockchains to connect to the Hub. Read more »
- Proposal Passed: IBC
future TBD
Success! The Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol is now supported by the Cosmos Hub. The IBC standard will allow blockchains that support it to connect.
- Community Governance
future TBD
At this point, the critical features of the Cosmos Hub has been activated by the community of Atom holders. Further governance of the network and upgrades to the software or blockchain state are left to the community. Read more »
Ecosystem
Akash Network:
#1 Cosmos Validator Sikka aka Sunny Aggarwal of Tendermint/Cosmos Joins Akash as Advisor.
Jack Zampolin of Pylon and Tendermint Joins as Advisor to Akash.
Announcing Our Third Founding Member Challenge! Congratulations to those of you who completed the first two challenges of the Akash Founding Member Rewards Program! Now the team announces the third and final challenge.
Althea:
Althea Development Update #78: Building a phone client: Althea is working on another method of penetrating home internet markets for low service areas with home phone routers. This would enable phone service through a home internet connection under more challenging conditions than in the city or suburbs of developed areas. They have also expanded to a neighborhood in Tacoma in the US, and are moving resources into Nigeria for a small pilot program there.
BitSong:
Forbole:
Forbole is looking for seed funding. More validators making the case that staking networks are fundable and legitimate businesses:
Hashgard:
Hashgard Weekly Blockchain Application Landing Cases (11.23–11.29).
IOV:
This month IOV was announcing another round of fundraising up to $5 mil.
IRISnet:
IRISnet 2nd Mainnet Upgrade Completed with NÜWA Stage LIVE & DeFi Support improved: on November 29th, IRISnet mainnet IRIS Hub has completed its second smooth upgrade. IRIS Hub has been updated to v0.16. New exciting modules, namely Atomic Swap (HTLC) and Coinswap, have been added to IRIS Hub. DeFi application development support has been improved. Also, snapshot, a new function that is very popular among their technical community, has also been added.
According to IRISnet whitepaper, in stage NÜWA, which is the second stage:
We are adding more foundational modules to support application development especially DeFi applications. The new modules planned to release in this stage including multi-asset management, Coinswap, multi-sig account etc. We plan to collabrate with 1–2 ecosystem partners to develop applications using those modules. We also plan to accomplish the test connection with Cosmos Hub through IBC at this stage.
IRISnet Biweekly Report(2019.11.4–11.17): IRISnet (a.k.a IRIS Hub) is designed to be the foundation for the next-generation distributed applications. Built with Cosmos-SDK, IRIS Hub enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model, while providing a variety of modules to support DeFi applications. You can find more details about IRISnet here.
- Unit testing of ICS03, ICS04 were added for the IBC module in Cosmos SDK;
- The rc version of v0.16 of the IRIS Hub was announced. Coinswap, HTLC, snapshot and other functions were introduced;
- A new incentivized testnet named Nyancat-5 was initiated and v0.16.0 test was completed;
- Error handling was optimized when the snapshot nodes broadcast blocks in Tendermint;
- A bug of snapshot was fixed in irishub. HTLC, error message of Coinswap were optimized;
- User experience of the Rainbow validator list was improved and the performance of the multi-chain wallet was optimized;
- IRISplorer 0.10.4 is under development, and is scheduled to be released after the completion of the irishub 0.16 upgrade;
- Cosmos&IRISnet cross-chain Chinese community COIRFAN was launched;
- Blockchain Explorer Mintscan starts to support IRISnet；
- From Nov 4 to Nov 17, 2019, IRISnet has participated in 5 events, namely: System Architect Conference China，Wuzhen World Blockchain Conference，Industrial Securities 2020 Strategy Conference，MXC AMA，China Computer Federation VIP Day.
IRISnet: the Forerunner of Cross-chain Services: Thanks to X-Order for holding the interview to IRISnet founder, Harriet Cao. Harriet Cao talked about the recent changes in Chinese policies, the current status of IRISnet and her thoughts on the value capture of public blockchain tokens. The original interview was conducted in Chinese. This is the translation of the conversation.
Kava:
Validating Kava Mainnet: The Kava mainnet is live and producing blocks! With transactions about to be enabled, here’s a quick guide on setting up a mainnet validator. Note that this is a minimal guide and does not cover more advanced topics like sentry node architecture and double signing protection. It is strongly recommend that any parties considering validating do additional research.
Kava | Brian Kerr | CDP platform | stablecoin | BlockchainBrad | DeFi | Cosmos SDK | Tendermint:
LikeCoin:
It’s time to migrate! Migration to the new LikeCoin (and phasing out LikeCoin ERC-20).
MyETHShop is Supporting the New LikeCoin Upgrade.
BitAsset is Supporting the New LikeCoin Upgrade.
Why Build A New Blockchain — LikeCoin Chain. LikeCoin is a decentralized protocol to transform the way digital content operates. It provides a tool for content attribution, a new business model to realign creativity and rewards, an established ecosystem for validators, developers, readers, and content creators to interact with each other. 2019 — Nov. LikeCoin issued its own Blockchain-based on Cosmos SDK.
Regen Network:
Get you some Regen hopium in the post about their TechStars Accelerator experience. Many others share Regen’s vision, and think they have an exciting and tangible path forward to make a difference and literally save the Earth.They also closed their private token sale to add to their growing treasury.
Sentinel:
Sentinel-Turing-2 — Announcement & extension of the Node Incentivization Program until Mainnet.
Terra:
November 2019 Terra Community Update:
Testnet running for upcoming Columbus-3 launch
- Two big changes are around increased Luna staking rewards with tax rates increasing from 0.11% to 0.5% and on-chain governance so Luna holders can submit and vote on proposals.
CHAI on 10 online platforms. Who are the 3 new partners?
- Sinsang Market: Korea’s largest B2B fashion platform
- Able C&C: Mother company of popular cosmetic brands such as Misha
- MarioMall: A quickly-growing online fashion outlet
Earn interest on your Terra
- Terra KRT is now available on Trinito, a wallet service owned by Dunamu-backed DXM. This means you can now put up crypto as collateral to borrow in Terra KRT, and you can earn interest on any KRT holdings. This is the first of many future DeFi partnerships, so if there are any amazing platforms we should be talking to, let us know. (Terra KRT is currently available on Korean exchanges GOPAX and GDAC, and can also be swapped with other native tokens on Terra Station.)
Buying Tacos with Terra at SF Blockchain Week (Video)
- The team ensured that all 300 DeFi Hacakthon attendees were well-fed by supplying everyone with a burner wallet. All attendees used Terra UST to pay for their meals at food trucks, showing that it’s possible to incorporate crypto into their daily lives.
Research:
- At SF Blockchain Week, Terra stellar researchers gave talks on Terra’s token economics, how it utilize macro economic theories, and even learned a new term, ‘CeFi’. You can find all of their presentations on Agora.
- They’ve also been doing a lot of research on improving their oracle. Learn where their heads at by reading Harvard Professor Marco Di Maggio’s latest blog post.
Talent:
- HR Manager Jacklyn Bae brings a new boost of energy to the team, and with 7 years under her belt, the team have no doubt she will be instrumental in growing Terra from a team of 50 to 100 and beyond.
- Ellie Won was a brand designer at a blockchain startup, and her first big project at Terra is to revamp the website. Check out her portfolio website and hold your breath for website 2.0!
Oracle Oracle What’s the Right Price?
Terra surpassed 700k accounts:
THORChain:
THORChain closes additional investment: THORChain has closed additional investment from a group of strategic investors.
Announcing THORChain Exchange Partners: The THORChain Exchange Partner Program details.
Weekly Dev Update #19: THORChain Weekly Dev Update for Week 19–02 Nov 2019.
Monthly Treasury Report: THORChain Monthly Expenses, Budget and Runway Report.
THORChain Feature Freeze: A summary of THORChain’s Feature Freeze and next steps.
TruStory:
TruStory’s first public testnet:
The marketing budget is spinning up for user adoption on TruStory, so they’re starting to offer extra cash for winning debates on the internet:
Other:
Corestar Receives Interchain Foundation Grant To Build Random Beacon on Tendermint.
cyber releases their WP for their search engine project built on Cosmos.
Cosmos ATOM Staking | Atomic Wallet Guide.
Announcing collaboration of Open Market and Starname Network.
Chorus One:
22 Ethermint: EVM on Cosmos with Chainsafe’s Austin Abell and Gregory Markou: Chainsafe is an R&D consulting firm focused on blockchain technology. The team is building clients and applications for various blockchain projects including Ethereum, Polkadot, and Cosmos. In this interview, Brian is talking to Austin and Gregory, who have been working on the Cosmos SDK module called “Ethermint”. Ethermint is bringing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to the Cosmos ecosystem allowing developers to launch their own blockchains with EVM support. One of the chains that is going to use the Ethermint module is Aragon Chain, which Chainsafe has also been commissioned to build. This episode dives into the design of the Cosmos SDK, challenges of building Ethermint, the report Chainsafe wrote that assisted Aragon’s choice to migrate into the Cosmos ecosystem, and much more.
23 Microtick: Price Oracles and Short-Term Options with Mark Jackson and Kent Barton: Microtick is an innovative protocol designed to foster global price agreement for any type of asset through an economic game between market makers providing quotes and traders placing bets. Microtick is a ShapeShift research project that is currently live in the form of a Cosmos SDK testnet.
In this episode, Meher and Felix are joined by Mark and Kent, who are leading Microtick’s research and development. They dive into the background of Microtick and how the project developed inside of ShapeShift. Mark and Kent explain Schelling points, how the protocol works at a high-level, the notion of a short-term options market and Microtick’s use cases, which range from Microtick as a price oracle, over Microtick as a product to hedge price exposure, to Microtick as a tool to build synthetic assets.
KysenPool Monthly Update: November 2019.
[Portfolio Update] Bi-Weekly release.
[Project Tracker] Cosmos #8 — November Updates in Cypher Core blog.
Oasis Network Incentives: A Proposal for the Network at Time of Launch.
DLive Partnership Program Update — November 2019.
Aragon Chain by Colin Schwarz: ChainSafe was recently engaged by the Aragon Network (and the AA by proxy) to build Aragon Chain, an alternate chain optimized for Aragon usage. Aragon Chain will be built by implementing existing Aragon smart contracts and associated components on Ethermint, which is also being built by ChainSafe. Ethermint is a Cosmos SDK module that provides the same functionality as mainnet Ethereum. The major difference is that Ethermint features proof of stake consensus which allows for faster and cheaper transactions as well as instant finality. We wanted to take the time to write a bit about Cosmos and Ethermint and how we plan to leverage these systems to deliver a custom chain, optimized for the Aragon community.
Aragon Chain will consist of two primary components: a migration of Aragon contracts from Ethereum to Ethermint, and a bridge that facilitates the transfer of value and information between Ethereum Aragon and Aragon Chain. This means that Aragon Chain will provide the same functionality to which users are accustomed on mainnet Ethereum, with the added bonus of lower fees and faster blocktimes and transactions. Building Aragon Chain as its own Cosmos zone will also allow for a higher level of control and customization in terms of future Aragon initiatives. Aragon Chain thus represents a unique intersection of some of the most powerful and exciting technologies in the blockchain space, including Ethereum, Aragon, Cosmos and Ethermint. ChainSafe is currently in the process of creating a specification and risk assessment for Aragon Chain and will begin development before the new year.
Linked Up: Developing a blockchain-based networking game by Stoyan Dimitrov: In collaboration with the organizers of SF Blockchain Week, Eco built a Cosmos-based dApp for conference attendees to network and exchange contact information. They used the Cosmos-SDK framework to build Linked Up because of its quick development cycle and rich set of blockchain modules that they could compose to accelerate development. What began as a side project became one of the most heavily used live dApps to date.
Linked Up was designed to enable people to connect and exchange contact information in a secure and self-sovereign way. By connecting and sharing, players gained reputation points redeemable for prizes. Over the two-day conference, hundreds of attendees used Linked Up to create thousands of connections and securely share their information on-chain.
In this article the team discuss how they built Linked Up, with a focus on the architecture behind the game and development issues they encountered. They have published the source code as well, for others to improve and build upon. You can find the blockchain here and the web app here.
Built with the Cosmos SDK
Projects that are actively building on the Cosmos ecosystem
Akash is the world’s first super cloud for serverless computing, empowering the architects and builders of the internet with greater access, freedom, and efficiency. Announcement » Infrastructure
Binance Chain is developed by Binance and its community as the basis for a decentralized exchange. Binance is considered the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world in terms of trading volume. Announcement » DEX
e-Money is the leading European provider of currency-backed stablecoins. The stablecoins are interest bearing and protected by an insolvency fund, which makes them unique in today’s market. Infrastructure Enterprise Stablecoin
IOV a universal protocol between blockchains and wallet users, is making it possible to send, receive and exchange any cryptocurrency from a single address of value. Wallet Name Service
IRISnet is designed to be the foundation for next generation distributed business applications. It is a BPoS blockchain, built with Cosmos-SDK, that enables cross-chain interoperability through a unified service model.Announcement » Enterprise
Kava is the world’s first Interledger solutions provider bringing blockchains, wallets, and exchanges the interoperability and liquidity of the Interledger.Announcement » Infrastructure
Lino is a decentralized autonomous content economy to determine its value and incentivize contributors in a more direct and effective manner.Announcement » Social
Loom is a Layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum that includes a network of DPoS sidechains for highly-scalable games and user-facing DApps.Announcement » Games
Playlist is a project aimed at tokenizing the music industry with their PLAY Protocol. Social
Regen Network is a global community and platform focused on ecological monitoring and regeneration. Announcement » Agriculture
Sentinel Network is a network layer that enables a true p2p and decentralized Applications & Resources marketplace. Announcement » Infrastructure
A price-stable cryptocurrency designed for mass adoption. We are building financial infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized applications.Announcement » Stablecoin Infrastructure
TruStory is building a social network for experts to identify what information is true and what isn’t in return for tokens. Announcement » Social
Check out the Full list of projects in Cosmos & Tendermint Ecosystem.
Partnerships and team members
Cosmos is hiring! See the latest job openings here.
Social media metrics
Social media activity:
Social media dynamics:
Cosmos community continues to grow. There is a stable increase in the number of subscribers of Cosmos social media channels these weeks.
See also Cosmos forum and Matrix/Riot Chat.
There are also Community-managed Channels. These channels are managed entirely by members of the Cosmos community and do not represent official Cosmos or ICF announcements.
Cosmos Validator Working Group
There is a strong stable growth in Cosmos community over time. The graph above shows the dynamics of changes in the number of Cosmos Reddit subscribers and Twitter followers. The information is taken from Coingecko.com.
