The birth of the Tendermint and IBC has enabled robusticity of consensus between untrusted parties and the simplicity of creating independent blockchains that are fully customizable while being interoperable by nature. Today, a significant number of Top 50 blockchains by market capitalization are built on Cosmos SDK and Tendermint. It is clear that the Cosmos Ecosystem is flourishing and the multichain future envisioned by Cosmos is turning into reality.

However, the set of ideas that serve as the pillars of the Cosmos Ecosystem’s architecture is slowly drifting away from its initial philosophy: Hub Minimalism. The founders of the Cosmos Hub believed that the functions of the hub should be as few as possible, with main reasons being: 1) preventing non-cross chain transactions from flooding the network, 2) keeping the functionality of zones and hubs separate, and 3) simplifying the hub to boost security (the recent halt of Juno Network validates this argument).

The deployment and the failure of the Gravity Dex on the Cosmos Hub coupled with the success of the Osmosis as an emerging dominant Hub created controversy within the Cosmos community. According to Map of Zones, Cosmos is ranked 3rd by IBC volume, and 4th by IBC transfers, which suggest that users prefer Hubs with more functionality such as Osmosis and Terra. Arguments that the Cosmos Hub should enable permissionless CosmWasm smart contacts or adopt a unique feature that can help Cosmos Hub regain its position as the leading hub are starting to confuse the community on where the Cosmos Hub should be headed, and if the tokenomics of ATOM needs modification.

The birth of the Tendermint and IBC has enabled robusticity of consensus between untrusted parties and the simplicity of creating independent blockchains that are fully customizable while being interoperable by nature. Today, a significant number of Top 50 blockchains by market capitalization are built on Cosmos SDK and Tendermint. It is clear that the Cosmos Ecosystem is flourishing and the multichain future envisioned by Cosmos is turning into reality.

However, the set of ideas that serve as the pillars of the Cosmos Ecosystem’s architecture is slowly drifting away from its initial philosophy: Hub Minimalism. The founders of the Cosmos Hub believed that the functions of the hub should be as few as possible, with main reasons being: 1) preventing non-cross chain transactions from flooding the network, 2) keeping the functionality of zones and hubs separate, and 3) simplifying the hub to boost security (the recent halt of Juno Network validates this argument).

The deployment and the failure of the Gravity Dex on the Cosmos Hub coupled with the success of the Osmosis as an emerging dominant Hub created controversy within the Cosmos community. According to Map of Zones, Cosmos is ranked 3rd by IBC volume, and 4th by IBC transfers, which suggest that users prefer Hubs with more functionality such as Osmosis and Terra. Arguments that the Cosmos Hub should enable permissionless CosmWasm smart contacts or adopt a unique feature that can help Cosmos Hub regain its position as the leading hub are starting to confuse the community on where the Cosmos Hub should be headed, and if the tokenomics of ATOM needs modification.