Atomic revelations from Cosmoverse 2022, a community-organized conference

The Cosmos community proved itself with this year’s Cosmoverse. No central management whatsoever was involved in the ecosystem’s main conference, which took place in Medellín in early November. The community organized it in a decentralized manner, and around 1500 people from more than 35 countries showed up. It lasted three full days. This year, Cosmoverse had more than 40 stands, 70 speakers, and a dozen workshops.

The venue’s interior design and the conference’s big production pieces joined forces to create a cool and sophisticated ambiance. The sustainability subject and the different project’s ability to go carbon neutral were ever present in the conference and its surroundings. Live music seemed to be everywhere.

Arguably, the Cosmos blockchain’s main focus is interoperability. The different blockchains are connected through the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol, best known as IBC. The concept is similar to that of Polkadot. Cosmos is kind-of a layer zero project in which many other blockchains can be inserted. The Cosmos Hub was the first of those new blockchains. ATOM is the Cosmos Hub’s native token, and it’s a very important asset throughout the whole ecosystem.

Cosmovision’s biggest reveal was the ATOM 2.0 whitepaper, which contains a new economic model for Cosmos. Before getting into that, though, let’s see what the project’s creator had in mind.

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What did Ethan Buchman, Co-Founder of Cosmos, reveal in his speech?

• Cosmos archived every goal set in the original 2016 Whitepaper. 
• Cosmos is transitioning from the “initiation phase” to the “integration phase.”
• Cosmos is no longer in competition with other L1 blockchains. Nowadays, Cosmos is competing with legacy institutions. 
• The Cosmos community needs better coordination and to build a stronger Cosmos Hub.
• The community has to start preparing for the “illumination phase,’ the third and final one.

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Atom 2.0 steals the show

The rumor mill was working overtime. The Atom 2.0 whitepaper contains information that can make or break any project built on top of Cosmos. The paper debuted surrounded by criticism. Apparently, it proposed the creation of a whooping 40 million ATOM to fill up the project’s treasury. That didn’t sit well with ATOM holders, and the number quickly came down to 4 million ATOM. That new budget will fund everything they promise in the whitepaper. The ATOM community will have the chance to vote on whether they want to create another batch of coins out of thin air. And they can do it a maximum of 10 times.

Embed: https://mobile.twitter.com/ChorusOne/status/1574460468395233280

The goal is for ATOM to eventually have a predictable 1% inflation, and that’s an issuance of around 300.000 ATOM per month. The Whitepaper summarizes this particular situation as follows: 

“This paper also describes a new issuance regime optimized for Liquid Staking, where after a 36 month transition period, exponential issuance is reduced to a constant amount of ATOM issued per month. To administer the proposed plan, the paper describes the formation of Cosmos Councils, domain-specialized entities that carry out development and operations.”

To summarize, more complexity is on the way. 

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Revelations From The Atom 2.0 Panel

These are not even ATOM 2.0-related, but they’re very interesting nonetheless.

• The Interchain Foundation’s Sam Hart said that the Cosmos Hub was a key piece of the blockchain’s ecosystem. Armed with ideas and suggestions from the Cosmos community, they’ll build a healthy Cosmos Hub.
• Informal Systems’ Jelena Djuric confirmed that they’ve been working with Circle, the issuers of USDC, trying to figure out the best way for them to launch the stablecoin in Cosmos.
• Sommelier’s Zaki Manian said that Cosmos’ focus was on “community-driven marketing.” The Cosmos community has and will always be involved in creating the project’s overall messaging. 

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Cosmoverse big announcement: Ignite blockchain

The Cosmos team pulled out all the stops on this one. Through Twitter, they announced: “Introducing the Ignite blockchain: an all-in-one easy to use solution for launching Cosmos chains from testnet to mainnet! Ignite for developers, it simplifies finding validators, coordinating the genesis and distributing token supply. A blockchain for launching new blockchains!”

Embed: https://mobile.twitter.com/CosmoverseHQ/status/1575236960180137984

The team also claims that “the Ignite Launchpad will be the place to go for Cosmos projects to get visibility, raise funds and launch their chain while inviting their community to discover and participate in their launch.” The new blockchain “allows projects to tokenize the total supply of a future mainnet chain before launch.”

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Cosmoverse big announcement: Mesh security

Osmosis Labs’ Sunny Agrawal spoke about expanding Cosmos’ core concept of interchain security during his presentation. The idea here is that economically connected blockchains could contribute to each other’s security, without giving away their sovereignty. In the past, the Cosmos Hub shared security with blockchains deployed in Cosmos. The mesh security idea introduces an element of decentralization, where blockchains will bidirectionally support and secure each other.

To be clear, mesh security is not available or being used yet. Apparently, it opens the door for inter-chain staking, but we’ll believe that when we see it. 

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Other Cosmoverse revelations

• Susannah Evans, the Project Lead for the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol, revealed that the next step for IBC was to expand to other blockchains such as Polkadot and NEAR. 
• CosmWasm is “the top smart contract engine in the Cosmos ecosystem.” Its director, Ethan Frey, announced the existence of CosmWasm Academy to train Cosmos developers in the art of the force.
• Babylon Chain is testing a new service. They’ll timestamp transactions on the Bitcoin network to try to import bitcoin security to Cosmos. Their website further elaborates, “the vision of the Babylon project is to leverage Bitcoin as a source of trust to benefit other blockchains in the broader ecosystem.” 

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Cosmoverse conclusions

By the looks of the different videos, Cosmoverse is easily the most stylish crypto conference out there. The fact that it’s organized by the community in a semi-decentralized manner makes it even more remarkable. Additionally, the Cosmos ecosystem’s announcements and innovations practically guarantee that the blockchain of blockchains will be one of the most exciting platforms for years to come.