A cheat sheet to illustrate details on Investors checklist for Blockchains . Data or stats are not authoritative and picked from scans of tweets, discord , telegram reddit etc 2021 Q4 and some references are provided. In case of any misses do let me know and I will update. These notes are more on under-the-hood engineering look. A separate article will cover the business development viewpoint
I use the trading ticker rather then name and for example for Axie Infinity blockchain game $AXS implies the coin or token and AXS implies the foundation/DAO/founders as appropriate
Status : DRAFT
Basics
Price Action
Stats and Links
Highlight Pro and Con
Technology
Apps Ecosystem
Funds and Promotions
Readings
Cosmos ( ATOM ) is a modular blockchain with an Internet-of-blockchain vision. It assumes a many independent parallel blockchains , each powered by POS classical BFT (Byzantine-Fault Tolerant) consensus algorithms like Tendermint. Developers can easily build custom application specific blockchains, called Zones, through the Cosmos SDK framework. These Zones connect to Hubs, which are specifically designed to connect zones together.
Many other chains like Binance Chain and Terra Luna use Tendermint. ATOM is estimated to provide up to 1,000 tps per Hub/spoke with fast confirmation and estimated 10,000 tps with several zones.
The idea for Cosmos came about in 2014 from Jae Kwon a Computer science graduate from Cornell University. Eventually, a team of Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchman formed for Tendermint(All in Bits Inc) a practical BFT toolkit and a contributor to Cosmos SDK supported by Switzerland based Interchain Foundation (ICF) was formed around the project . The Cosmos main net was officially launched in 2019.
Cosmos had 40K MAU and 40 active zones
$ATOM 52 week Low to High return in 2021 was 572% and 6.294 USD ( Jan 1) - 32.431 USD (Dec 31) for 415.27% return in 2021
300K+ Twitter, 55K+ Reddit, 19K+ Telegram
Early stage tool provider (Tendermint etc ) for many chains like $LUNA, $CRO
Cosmos Network was one of the earliest protocols to target the interoperability niche with IBC and has good traction
Large developer and apps ecosystem
Not much marketing or media promotion
$ATOM is not required by app-chains using Cosmos sdk and that may need to change to support $ATOM
engineering focus
Cosmos assume a app specific blockchain as Zones and an ability to communicate between zones using the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (aka “IBC”) and Hubs as a Hub-Spoke. Rust and CosmoWASM is used for smart contract
Consensus
Tendermint uses POS and all validators to communicate with one another to reach consensus ( no random or epoch based subset). Tendermint consensus is practically limited to around 200 validators / zone before performance starts to degrade.Blocks in Tendermint are finalized as soon as they receive 2/3 + 1 signatures from validators .
Tendermint uses a 2 phase process with pre commit and pre vote
However, when a network splits, the protocol chooses not to make further progress until more than 2/3 of the validators come to an agreement again. This choice should ensure that there is always “one source of truth” and that the blockchain always maintains consistency. In Cosmos, stakers (sometimes called delegators) assign their stakes to validators.
Cosmos Hub is the centerpiece of the ecosystem. Its main task is to account for the total number of tokens in each zone (blockchain) in the ecosystem, so that zones can directly transfer tokens to each other.
The IBC locks a certain number of $ATOM tokens in the first blockchain (zone), then sends confirmation and validation to the second zone, after which the previously locked tokens are released on the second blockchain. This scheme facilitates the release and creation of tokens representing assets on other blockchains.
In the IBC architecture, messages to be sent are physically relayed via “Relayers”. “Relayers” run off-chain and continuously scan thestate of each ledger via a light client connected to each of the 2 chains and can also execute transactions on another ledger when outgoing datagrams have been committed. For correct operation and progress in a connection between two ledgers, IBC requires only that at least one correct and live relayer process exists which can relay between the ledgers. The relay process must have access to accounts on both chains with sufficient balance to pay for transaction fees. Relayers may employ application-level methods to recoup these fees, such by including a small payment to themselves in the packet data.
Currently these zones and IBC relayers do not need to accrue and use $ATOM for fees but there is a proposal to do so and offload zones from maintaining tokens of other chains for transfers
The Vega upgrade provides Authz module with governance functions to execute transactions on behalf of another account
286 Mill Tokens in circulation
250+ apps on Cosmos zone . Gravity is a DEX native to Cosmos and Osmosis is a DEX on its own app-chain using IBC to use Cosmos Hub.
IBC-Enabled Chains
There are a number active as visible at the map-for-zones. Cosmos Hub, Secret Network, IRISnet, Akash, Crypto.com, Persistence, Regen Network, Sentinel, Osmosis, Starname, SifChain, Terra, Band
Akash ($AKT) is an attempt to offer spare compute capacity AWS style in a decentralized fashion, Forte game development platform, Kadena ($KDB ) a POW blockchain improving on Bitcoin performance and Terra $LUNA and BSC (Binance) $BNB are large Layer 1 Chain and more See Cosmos Ecosystem worth around 60 Billion USD in 28 IBC enabled chains and 150 Billion Mcap in 49 apps and services (19 Jan 2022) Gravity is a Ethereum-Cosmos bridge.
Unlike $DOT Polkadot or Ethereum V2 which requires same set of validators Cosmos allows eaxh zone to have its own set giving more sovereignty. Thus app specific zones can tailor security and EVM needs. They can use Ethermint ( and the upcoming Evmos ) to be compatible with Ethereum
Funding
Interchain Foundation managed to raise around $16 million in a 2017 ICO and 6 Mill in 2019 with Tendermint thru Bain Capital, Paradigm etc.
Promotions
$ATOM benefited by a large amount of airdrops by new projects on Cosmos network.
Cosmos has not done much marketing incentives and has managed to have many validators like Binance , Coinbase, Kraken, Paradigm, Multichain ventures stake $ATOM. Cosmostarter is a accelerator program to bring projects on baord to Cosmos. Tendermint Ventures supports the Cosmos Ecosystem through strategic investments in promising projects.The Interchain Foundation provides grants, service agreements, full-time employment and investments.
Cosmos Ecosystem Quietly Surges to $17B in TVL in Challenge to Ethereum Layer 2s
https://crypto-wikipedia.com/what-is-cosmos/
How to Turn a $17 Million ICO Into $104 Million: The Cosmos Story
Asia Digital Bank implementing access to Cosmos ecosystem thru IRISnet
A beginner's guide to Cosmos: Bankless
The state of Cosmos: Token Terminal Research Series
the Cosmos network has grown to 263 as of April 2022. While most of these projects are small, some of them are well-funded and impactful blockchains, such as the Binance Smart Chain, Terra, and Crypto.com Chain. Since launch, 45 blockchains have been deployed on the Cosmos network.
May 6, 2022
What’s Coming to Cosmos in 2022?
As Tendermint CEO Peng Zhong told CryptoSlate, “I think we will easily see 200 chains connected via IBC by this time next year and, in the long term, even a million.”