New Cosmos whitepaper repurposes ATOM token and refines imaginative and prescient

by Jeremy

Interoperability-focused blockchain community Cosmos has dropped a brand new whitepaper proposing a revamped Cosmos Hub aimed toward strengthening interoperability and safety, together with key adjustments to its native ATOM token. 

The brand new Cosmos whitepaper was launched on Monday on the Cosmoverse convention in Medellin, Colombia. The upgrades outlined within the whitepaper are nonetheless technically in “proposal” standing however adjustments are anticipated to be made on-chain on Oct. 3.

Cosmos is an ecosystem of blockchains designed to scale and interoperate with one another. Cosmos Hub was the primary blockchain to be constructed on Cosmos, which initially served as an middleman between different interconnected blockchains.

The ATOM token is used to transact inside the Cosmos ecosystem, which may also be used for governance and staking functions.

Underneath the proposed adjustments, Cosmos will change into a extra interoperable, decentralized, and safe ecosystem.

One of many adjustments outlined is the reinvention of the Cosmos Hub because the “Interchain” net, which can allow different Cosmos blockchains to borrow the Hub’s validator pool to safe its community slightly than having to seek out their very own.

Billy Rennekamp, the Cosmos Hub Product Lead added that the worth proposition behind this transition to Interchain Safety would additionally make the Cosmos community “legally, defensibly decentralized.”

Based on the whitepaper, Interchain Safety will even allow Cosmos Hub to “host a novel class of functions with complementary performance,” stating:

“Interchain Safety offers client chains a sooner, simpler, and cheaper path to market [and] the event platform afforded by Interchain Safety permits […] third events to make the most of the Hub’s important infrastructure to construct business functions.”

The whitepaper additionally proposes a brand new issuance mannequin for the native ATOM token, with the purpose to strike a greater stability between ecosystem development and interchain adoption “whereas nonetheless preserving the safety afforded by the unique regime,” in accordance with the whitepaper.

The brand new financial coverage will see two phases: “transition” and “regular state.”

The transition section will see 10,000,000 ATOM issued within the first month, which can then lower at a declining fee till it reaches the regular state section 36 months later.

Cosmos co-founder Ethan Buchman mentioned this new token issuance mannequin would allow different Cosmos blockchains to change into extra interconnected with the Cosmos Hub and ATOM.

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The whitepaper additionally outlined a plan to additional accrue extra worth to the ATOM token by enabling leveraged liquid staking.

This can permit ATOM holders to unstake ATOM tokens as simply as they staked them, which can quickly be enabled by the Cosmos “liquid staking module.”

“The person expertise and capital effectivity enchancment supplied by liquid stalking is so substantial” that it required “full financial integration” into the brand new Cosmos interchain-oriented ecosystem, in accordance with the whitepaper.

The discharge of the whitepaper comes a couple of weeks after analysis and funding agency Delphi Labs introduced a shift of its R&D efforts to give attention to the Cosmos ecosystem.

The analysis agency outlined community pace, chain liquidity, ample decentralization, and cross-chain interoperability as the important thing components behind its determination to supply R&D efforts to assist additional the expansion of Cosmos.