Cøsmos Network: Tendermint introduces Starport — the easiest way to build a blockchain, Launchpad — a pre-stargate stable version of the Cosmos SDK, Proposal#27, that signals the implementations brought by the Stargate upgrade, passed, and much more!

Published in

Paradigm

19 min readJul 28, 2020

Biweekly update on Cosmos ecosystem vol. 27, 14th July — 28th July

Dear Cosmonauts, we’re going for a ride into space. Over these two weeks, there was a lot of truly huge news for you!
Firstly, the Tendermint team launches Starport! It is an open-source rapid prototyping tool that lets developers quickly build a new blockchain with just two CLI commands. Currently, even for seasoned blockchain developers, building a new blockchain and launching a local testnet can take up the better part of a day. With the alpha release of Starport, developers can launch a simple Cosmos SDK-based blockchain in less than five minutes. Starport’s intelligent scaffolding feature radically reduces development time and lowers the barrier to blockchain for millions of developers. Starport is available today for developers to download and try out. Start turning your idea into a blockchain! Check out the tutorials to help you get started building with Starport below!
Stargate, the biggest upgrade to the Cosmos ecosystem, is coming later this year. Most of the Stargate upgrades will affect the Cosmos SDK in substantial ways, making the upgrade process more involved than for previous versions. To make this process easier for module developers, blockchain builders and client providers, the team releases a version series of the SDK called Launchpad. It will allow SDK developers to enjoy a stable version of the framework until they are ready to upgrade. Check it out!
The upcoming Stargate upgrade will include version 1.0 of the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC), the mechanism for interoperability between heterogeneous chains, which forms the connective substrate for the Cosmos Network. Christopher Goes wrote a blog post which outlines what the 1.0 release of IBC will consist of, enumerates the expected sequence of steps for testing and deployment of IBC as part of the larger Stargate upgrade process, briefly catalogs ongoing IBC-related work which is not formally part of the 1.0 release process but will be of interest soon, and sketches a few nascent ideas for the future development of IBC after Stargate and the 1.0 release, some of which will also be outlined in greater detail in a future post.
As for the Cosmos ecosystem projects’ updates, there was a ton of big stuff! IRISnet was selected into the first batch of public blockchains supported by BSN. Check out Bifröst, IRISnet’s bridge to a New Era, — an overview of the innovations and improvements brought to you by the new IRIS Hub testnet, for the benefit of the entire Cosmos ecosystem. IOV testnet is live with Launchpad, v0.39 of the Cosmos-SDK. The first onchain upgrade passed successfully at Cyber. Akash Network was at Singapore Blockchain Week 2020. Round-0 of Desmos Network Private Sale has ended. ICON strategically partners and integrates with Band Protocol. PlutusDeFi partners with Sentinel dVPN to secure off-chain privacy for its users. THORChain Testnet 4.1 is ready on 10 community-run nodes. Regen Network introduces the new cosmos Community SDK Dev Call series. Agoric’s weekly updates are out. BitSong now listed on Uniswap. Don’t forget to Vote for Terra’s LUNA on the Huobi FastTrack Program to get LUNA listed first!
What’s more, as proponents of open-source software, the Cosmos team values transparency and the benefit of an extra set of eyes on the work. These weeks, they make another step towards the common goal by open-sourcing the Cosmos website, cosmos.network.
And last but not least, our Citadel.one team finally deployed Cosmos node, so the Cosmos integration is near at hand!
That’s all for today! See you in Cosmos!

Development

Github metrics:

Launchpad — A pre-stargate stable version of the Cosmos SDK

The team introduced Launchpad, a release series of the Cosmos SDK that aims to be a stable milestone for Cosmos SDK-based blockchains to use until they upgrade to Stargate.

Stargate, the biggest upgrade to the Cosmos ecosystem, is coming later this year. Most of the Stargate upgrades will affect the Cosmos SDK in substantial ways, making the upgrade process more involved than for previous versions. To make this process easier for module developers, blockchain builders and client providers, the team is releasing a version series of the SDK called Launchpad. It will allow SDK developers to enjoy a stable version of the framework until they are ready to upgrade.

What it Contains

Launchpad will be released as v0.39.x (starting with v0.39.0) of the Cosmos SDK. In short, it is a stabilized version of v0.38. The main addition is a fix to the IAVL pruning functionality, following the introduction in v0.13.0 of a bug whereby the state was flushed only periodically. The fix reverts IAVL to its pre-v0.13.0 behaviour where every state is committed and flushed to the disk. Launchpad also contains a number of small improvements and performance fixes. To see all the updates in v0.39.0, see the changelog.

Note: If you are currently using Cosmos SDK v0.37.xor v0.38.x for your project, you should plan to upgrade to either Launchpad (v0.39.x) or Stargate, given that they contain important stability fixes for issues introduced in the aforementioned version.

A migration path to Stargate

Stargate will introduce significant breaking changes to the core SDK framework (most notably the switch from amino to protobuff as the main SDK codec) as well as many of the most widely used modules. It will also introduce new features and modules such as light clients and the upgrade module that will significantly affect the way people run full-nodes and interact with them. As a result, the upgrade process to Stargate will be more challenging than usual for SDK-based projects. To help smooth this process, the Stargate team will provide well-tested and documented migration paths from the Launchpad releases to the Stargate release.

Importantly, the Launchpad series will be maintained even after the release of Stargate. Intended to be a stable release series, no new features will be introduced, but additional stability fixes and non-breaking upgrades may be incorporated if needed. This will allow projects using the Cosmos SDK to have all the time they need to upgrade to Stargate.

How to upgrade to Launchpad

The first version in the Launchpad series is released as v0.39.0 of the Cosmos SDK, a breaking upgrade from previous versions. Be sure to check the changelog in order to be aware of all the changes you might need to take into consideration when upgrading your chain to Launchpad.

As for upgrading full-nodes, you can find a guide here.

Next Steps

Going forward, Launchpad will be primarily managed by Ethan Frey (Confio), Cory Levinson (Regen Network) and Alessio Treglia (Tendermint). It is already being used in testnets by IRISnet, Ethermint, Commerc.io, IOV and more.

If you would like to suggest any addition for following releases, please open an issue on the Cosmos SDK repository with the 0.39 Launchpad tag. If you have any other questions, feel free to join the Launchpad channel on the Cosmos Community Discord.

Preparing for IBC 1.0

by Interchain GmbH

The upcoming Stargate upgrade will include version 1.0 of the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol (IBC), the mechanism for interoperability between heterogeneous chains, which forms the connective substrate for the Cosmos Network. IBC has been in design and development since the release of the original Cosmos whitepaper. In suitable fashion for a technical interoperability protocol, interoperability between many organizations and individual contributors has been essential in bringing IBC to where it is today — Tendermint, Agoric, Informal Systems, Chorus One, Iqlusion, Interchain GmbH, and the Interchain Foundation have all contributed resources & personnel to the design, specification, and implementation of IBC. Many community contributors outside of those organizations have found bugs, submitted specification proposals, and provided invaluable quality assurance testing for the software. The 1.0 release of IBC is the culmination of years of diligent work by these organizations & individuals, but it is also the beginning of the next chapter in the trajectory of the Cosmos Network, and the inflection point at which the driving force behind protocol development & adoption must shift from a relatively tight-knit coalition of firms to a much wider community of blockchain developers, proof-of-stake validators, and protocol users.

This blog post outlines what the 1.0 release of IBC will consist of, enumerates the expected sequence of steps for testing & deployment of IBC as part of the larger Stargate upgrade process, briefly catalogs ongoing IBC-related work which is not formally part of the 1.0 release process but will be of interest soon, and sketches a few nascent ideas for the future development of IBC after Stargate & the 1.0 release, some of which will also be outlined in greater detail in a future post.

Open-sourcing the Cosmos Network website

From the very beginning, the Cosmos community has been at the forefront of open-source technology by spearheading the development of toolkits and protocols like Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), Tendermint Core, and the Cosmos SDK.

As proponents of open-source software, they value transparency and the benefit of an extra set of eyes on the work. In this spirit, the team has worked hard to build the free and vibrant developer community we see today — a place where everyone is welcomed and empowered to collaborate, discuss, and sustain knowledge transfer.

Now they make another step towards the common goal by open-sourcing the Cosmos website, cosmos.network.

Tendermint

Starport, the easiest way to start building a blockchain

Starport is an open-source rapid prototyping tool that lets developers quickly build a new blockchain with just two CLI commands. Currently, even for seasoned blockchain developers, building a new blockchain and launching a local testnet can take up the better part of a day. With the alpha release of Starport, developers can launch a simple Cosmos SDK-based blockchain in less than five minutes. Starport’s intelligent scaffolding feature radically reduces development time and lowers the barrier to blockchain for millions of developers.

Lowering the barrier to entry

For developers and end-users, steep technical learning curves and usability concerns are known blockers for mainstream blockchain adoption. The estimated number of blockchain developers is just over 100,000 compared to nine million Javascript developers. As of June 2019, the Blockchain Developer Analysis Report referenced an average of 6,842 total monthly active crypto developers. This disparity highlights significant growth potential and the need for better developer tooling.

Starport: From idea to blockchain in minutes

Tendermint Core, Cosmos SDK, and Inter-blockchain Communication (IBC) were the essential foundational layers for building an ‘Internet of Blockchains.’ However, for the ecosystem to mature and grow, Tendermint recognized the need for higher-level tooling to support faster and easier application development on top of the robust Cosmos stack. Thus, Tendermint built Starport to serve as a starting point for new developers to scaffold, prototype, and launch public Proof-of-Stake blockchains in minutes.

Starport Features

Scaffold a blockchain: set up and start developing a full-featured Cosmos SDK-based blockchain in one command
Scaffold a type: create a new data type in one command (including CLI commands, REST endpoints, and web UI views)
Scaffold a web app: a web app is automatically created (including CosmJS and the API to interact with the blockchain)
Hot reloading: the web app and the blockchain itself will automatically reload when changes are made to the source code
Smart contracts: add CosmWasm smart contract support to the blockchain with one command
Up-to-date: Starport supports Launchpad, a stable release of the Cosmos SDK. It will also soon support Stargate, the IBC-enabled version of the Cosmos SDK.

What will you build with Starport?

Starport is available today for developers to download and try out. Start turning your idea into a blockchain! Check out these short tutorials to help you get started building with Starport:

Install Starport on your machine
3-minute blog tutorial: get started with your first blockchain
Blog (from scratch) tutorial: build a blog in Starport without scaffolding
Poll tutorial: build a voting application with a web-based UI
Smart contract tutorial: add smart contracts to your app with CosmWasm: build, upload, instantiate and run a smart contract

Tendermint 2020 Roadmap:

The Tendermint Core team has decided to share their goals and roadmap for 2020. What follows is a list of their objectives for the year, organized around four high-level goals, which are themselves ordered by approximate priority. However, the team plans to tackle pieces of each of these goals concurrently.

This list is ambitious: It is possible, even likely, that there’s more outlined here than they can achieve in a year. If you are interested in helping the team reach these goals, they’ll be opening up a few new positions soon.

Goal 1: Increase the number of people who can make substantive contributions to Tendermint Core

Goal 2: Ship features and fixes which help Tendermint Core retain its market-leading position

Goal 3: Improve the developer- and user-experience for projects that use Tendermint Core

Goal 4: Expand and curate the number of technologies that can be integrated with Tendermint Core

If you have questions, ideas, or would like to contribute, please open an issue or join Tendermint developer forum.

Cosmos Governance

Stargate Upgrade Proposal passed:

- 55.65% of staked ATOM participated (101.87M ATOM)

- 99.97% voted ‘yes.’

- 309 accounts cast a vote

- 256 were non-validator accounts

Awareness and social encounters

Cosmos AMA with Regen Network took place:

Citizen Cosmos podcast new episodes:

Gregory Landua, Regen Network & ecological regeneration.

Code With Us

Live online workshops by Cosmos

The team is launching “Code with us,” a live, interactive workshop program designed to educate and provide real-time practice to developers in the community.

The Cosmos ‘Code with Us’ program brings workshops from the home offices to yours. There couldn’t be a better time to invest in online learning, especially with so many people working from home.

This program aims to provide everyone with access to the information and resources they need to become familiar with the Cosmos stack. These seminars are small workshops led by expert mentors from Tendermint Inc, Interchain GmbH, Agoric, Band Protocol and others that will use their expertise to guide the community of developers from deploying a simple “Hello World” blockchain, to getting familiar with the Cosmos SDK architecture, running an IBC relayer, and much more.

Participants have the opportunity to access hands-on live lessons to code together in real-time with some of the community’s most respected contributors. Most of the workshops are structured in two-hour sessions with associated online materials or tutorials, and will take place roughly every two weeks. If you are looking for a quick and fun introduction to Cosmos’ tech, this is the perfect way to get started. To get started, make sure you sign up for “Code with Us” workshops.

The team has put together a list of future workshops designed to educate, guide and inspire the next generation of innovators. Bear in mind that this list is subject to change as more community members express their enthusiasm to participate in the program.

New to Cosmos? No worries! Come and join the workshops and pick up a new skill in just 2 hours! With so many interesting themes to choose from, you can pick your favorites and you’re all set to begin your journey into the vast universe of the Cosmos ecosystem

Sign up for the “Code with Us” workshop program. The team will send you a link to add the calendar, email reminders of the upcoming workshops and a list of documentation for each session.

Cosmos Code With Us — Ethermint Tutorial: Elizabeth Binks walks through how to set up an Ethermint development environment and how to use Ethereum development tooling on Ethermint.

Upcoming events:

Finance

Cosmos validators

Information from Mintscan.io:

Top 10 validators:

Cosmos Markets

Information from Coinmarketcap.com:

ATOM Futures now listed on Huobi:

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 »

IBC Implementation

Due by July 27, 2020 82% complete

IBC v1.0.0 issues left to be implemented.

Ecosystem updates

Akash Network:

The Earning Potential of Akash Token

Akash Network at Singapore Blockchain Week 2020

The Akashian Challenge: Phase 2 Close & Update

Partner Profile: Simply VC

Akash Network Launches Russian Community

Oracle:

Dawn Protocol:

IRIS Network:

IRISnet was selected into the first batch of public blockchains supported by BSN: On July 20, 2020, the Block-chain-based Service Network (BSN) announced that IRISnet is among the first batch of public blockchains selected for integration. This integration will better support public blockchain service, one of the “three main services” provided by BSN with the other two being consortium blockchain service and interchain service. IRISnet’s integration will enable developers to connect to IRISnet and the entire Cosmos ecosystem with speed and low cost through the IRISnet node provided by BSN; it further supports reliable data and service exchanges between heterogeneous blockchains and off-chain systems.

Bifröst, IRISnet’s bridge to a New Era: Overview of the innovations and improvements brought to you by the new IRIS Hub testnet, for the benefit of the entire Cosmos ecosystem.

Regen Network:

Regen Network introduces the new cosmos Community SDK Dev Call series:

IOV:

IOVtestnet is live with Launchpad of the Cosmos-SDK: IOV testnet is live with Launchpad, v0.39 of the Cosmos-SDK! The Cosmos-SDK brings with it decentralised governance and proof-of-stake validation. If you want to join the testnet as a validator, you can click here to know more about it.

The Cosmos-SDK gives us familiar tooling like The Big Dipper block explorer, and the team exposes a REST API for easy integration of the IOV Name Service into wallets/exchanges/payment services/etc. Cosmostation, one of IOV’s partners, has already integrated the testnet into their mobile wallet!

Thinking about designing the best name service, here are some great features that come along with starname:

Universal Lookup: resolve any kind of starname into a list of addresses and digital assets;
Universal and Fast Reverse Lookup: do you have an Ethereum address or Cosmos address, for example, and want to get all the info related to a starname? You can!
One starname, two roles : with starname the fee payer can be different from the owner of the name. That means that there are two roles (the owner of the name and the person that makes a transaction) that can be performed by one user, or by two different users.
Short and personalised format: starname is a decentralised username more than a domain.
Open and Close permissions: A business, for example, can have many subcategories of starname using close permission as in finance*theflowershop, orders*theflowershop, etc. Close permission means that the owner can manage all the names together.
Metadata: you can add additional info to a starname.
Proof of stake: the reward is proportional to your stake, which also contributes for more space to decentralisation at some point.

Bluzelle:

Desmos Network:

Round -0 of Desmos Network Private Sale has ended:

Kava:

Update: Rewards For Borrowing USDX Likely To Begin July 29th.

KAVA/USDT Perpetual Contracts will launch on Binance on July 28 at 7:00 AM (UTC).

Terra:

Persistence One:

Band Protocol:

Major Blockchain Network ICON Strategically Partners & Integrates With Band Protocol Scalable Decentralized Oracles.

ICON’s First DeFi Platform Balanced Integrates Band Protocol’s Scalable Oracles For Collateral & Synthetic Assets: Balanced, the first DeFi platform on Icon, integrates BAND oracles to provide secure and scalable price feeds for collateral assets and synthetic assets such as stocks, ETFs, gold, oil and more!

Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol Gravity Hub Collaborates With Band Protocol To Build Symbiotic Oracle Network.

Decentralized Gaming Platform BetProtocol Integrates Band Protocol To Launch Esports & Sports Betting.

Bytom:

CyberMiles:

Althea Network:

Solid foundations for Peggy: this investment will support our work in deploying more decentralized internet networks and the work of interoperability with Ethereum and Cosmos by developing the Peggy bridge.

Agoric:

Agoric’s weekly updates:

Cyber:

- Quite a few proposals passed on Cybers new governance page:

- Participate in Cybers economical design competition, submit your improvement proposals and make the network as decentralize as possible. 4.6 trillion EULs at stake:

cybercongress/congress

Euler Network Improvement Proposals (inspired by the EIP of Ethereum) describe various improvement suggestions, feature…

github.com

- Cyber has launched its decentralized Twitter analogue. Tweet using a Ledger device and a multisig account!

First onchain upgrade passed successfully at Cyber:

Idena Network:

BitSong:

BitSong now listed on Uniswap:

LikeCoin:

Sentinel:

PlutusDeFi partners with Sentinel dVPN to secure off-chain privacy for PlutusDeFi.com users.

THORChain:

THORChain Testnet 4.1 Ready for The Public: Testnet 4.1 is ready on 10 community-run nodes.

* THORNode Operators churn in

* Swappers and stakers should test

* Bots should get ready

* Bounty hunters should find bugs

Monthly Treasury Report — July: The treasury comprises of $2.9m USD liquid and $7.2m in RUNE, with a 39 month Runway. Planned Obsolescence July 2022.

RUNE Distribution Update — July

THORCHAIN — ONE YEAR MILESTONE: 52 weeks of continuous THORChain weekly dev updates

Weekly Dev Update #52: THORChain Weekly Dev Update for Week 15–20 July 2020; Tesnet4, Testnet4.1 and chain improvements.

THORChain Testnet4 Ready for Public Nodes: The team invite node operators to set up a THORNode and practice churning into Testnet 4.

Weekly Dev Update #51: THORChain Weekly Dev Update for Week 07–14 July 2020; Preparations for Testnet 4

Built with the Cosmos SDK

Projects that are actively building on the Cosmos ecosystem

Band Protocol — Band Protocol provides a secure and scalable decentralized oracle for Web 3. Announcement » Infrastructure

Binance Chain — 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 — 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 — 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 — 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 — Kava is the first cross-blockchain DeFi platform that enables traders to leverage their assets and hedge using a multi-collateral CDP system and collateral-backed stablecoin (USDX). Announcement » Stablecoin Infrastructure

Persistence — Persistence is creating the most effective tools for enterprise blockchain solutions, built on Cosmos technology and powered by Tendermint. Announcement » Enterprise

Playlist — Playlist is a project aimed at tokenizing the music industry with their PLAY Protocol. Social

Regen Network — Regen Network is a global community and platform focused on ecological monitoring and regeneration. Announcement » Agriculture

Sentinel — Sentinel Network is a network layer that enables a true p2p and decentralized Applications & Resources marketplace. Announcement » Infrastructure

Terra — A price-stable cryptocurrency designed for mass adoption. We are building financial infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized applications. Announcement » Stablecoin Infrastructure

Check out the Full list of projects in Cosmos & Tendermint Ecosystem.