Interchain Security on Quicksilver

This article was edited on 22.06.2022 in light of the product roadmap communicated on 06.05.2022.

Edit, 22.06.2022:

Contrary to the team’s initial plans, Quicksilver will not be launching with ICS, given the changes in timing in the ICS release and other product-related changes on Quicksilver. The team is still considering leveraging ICS once it becomes available. Vish Modali and Roea Mortaki, two of Quicksilver’s co-founders, went live on Twitter Spaces in early May to walk the community through these changes. Listen to the full segment here, or read about it here.

The Quicksilver zone will be the liquid staking zone for the entire Cosmos ecosystem, designed with scalability in mind, to issue vouchers representative of assets staked on all IBC-connected chains. This means a significant portion of the $36 billion (as of March 4th, 2022) of staked value in the Cosmos ecosystem will be able to live on the Quicksilver chain, and with great value comes great responsibility — Enter Interchain security.

Interchain Security

Interchain security enables the validator set of a more established chain, such as the Cosmos hub, to secure a newer chain, such as Quicksilver. This mechanism would allow the Cosmos Hub’s validator set to produce blocks on the Quicksilver chain. It would also use ATOM as a staked asset, and so if users misbehave on the Quicksilver Zone, their ATOMs would automatically be slashed on the Hub.

Through this mechanism, a consumer chain of ICS would import the entire economic security of the Cosmos Hub, which is currently secured by $5.5 billion worth of staked ATOM and is one of the most secure validator sets in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Will the Hub validator set always fully secure the Quicksilver Zone?

In short, no.

Once the Quicksilver chain is more established, we plan to move to a layered security arrangement with the Cosmos Hub (Interchain security v3). In Interchain security v3, the Cosmos Hub validator set would be supplemented by a validator set from the Quicksilver community. Having both validator sets secure our zone would bring our community and chain even greater security. You can read more about Interchain security v1 and v3 here.

Bottom line

• Quicksilver will be one of the first chains in the Cosmos ecosystem to adopt the ICS v3 enhanced security model.
• As Interchain Security v3 rolls out, our chain will be secured both by Cosmos Hub validators and Quicksilver validators. This is our ideal state, as it provides maximum security and maximum value for ATOM and QCK token holders alike.

Stay in touch

The initial Quicksilver testnet will be launching end of Q1–2022, followed by incentivized testnets in Q2 — Follow our social channels to stay up to date on our latest news, airdrops, and events.

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