Highlights

• Cosmos (ATOM) plans to have a web of crypto networks clubbed by open-source tools for smooth communication and transactions between them.
• Cosmos’s objective is to encourage an ecosystem of networks that can share data and token in a seamless manner.
• Cosmos uses Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol that offers developers access to powerful tools to enhance efficiency and enables easy exchange of data across sovereign decentralized blockchain.

The Blockchain network Cosmos (ATOM) is known as “Internet of blockchains”. It aims to create a network of crypto networks integrated by open-source tools for smooth communication and transactions between them. 

It able to transform friction in the market into a positive driving force for development and focuses on customizability and interoperability that makes it different from other cryptocurrencies.

Its objective is to encourage a web of networks that can share data and token in a seamless manner, with no central party facilitating the activity. It also features a range of products and offers a set of tools. Further, it uses open source tools such as Tedermint and SDKs for creating and hosting a dApp in its ecosystem, which make it an impressive option in the market.

It can now connected to recently launched Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol that offers developers access to powerful tools to enhance efficiency and enables easy exchange of data across sovereign decentralized blockchain.

Each new independent blockchain created within Cosmos network is known as Zone, is tethered to Cosmos Hub. The Cosmos Hub is a proof-of-stake bockchain, which maintains a record of the state of each zone and vice versa and it is powered by its native ATOM cryptocurrency.

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History of Coscom

Coscom Blockchain was introduced in 2014 by developers Jae Kwon and Ethan Buchman, after a blockchain developer Jae Kwon introduced Tendermint, a Byzantine Generals Problem (BFT) protocol to the industry. It was created to solve some of the problems of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm, lack of flexibility and limited scripting language.

The Interchain Foundation (ICF) helped in the development and launch of Coscom. In 2017, cosmos successfully secured itself via an ICO project, which raised US $17 million. Then in December 2018, it started major testing with the release of Game of Stakes and in 2019 it was successfully launched when Cosmos mainnet went live.

What issues does Cosmos (ATOM) solve

As every blockchain operates independently currently and it reduces the overall ability of the market to achieve important goals such as lobbying for more pro-crypto legislation or other important improvement in the industry. To address the lack of interoperability in the crypto market Cosmos was launched.

Cosmos allow developers to focus efforts on improvement as various blockchains can coexist with their own specialised use cases and it also enables them to leverage the capabilities of other platforms to enhance efficiency and usability.

It offers two kind of scalability. The Tendermint BFT handles thousands of transactions per second by moving away from Proof-of-Work and optimizing its components. It is used at the time of launch, as it offers major improvement on current blockchain.

However, the limitation of Tendermint BFT is even if applications and consensus engine are highly optimised, the transaction across a single chain decreases, which it cannot surpass. So, to solve this problem Multi-chain is used that run the same application and are operated by a common validator set.  It is used after completing the IBC module.

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How Does Cosmos Works?

The Cosmos network includes three layers:

• Application- processes transactions and updates the state of the network
• Networking- enables communication between blockchains and transactions.
• Consensus- it offers a mechanism for nodes to agree on the current state of the system.

Cosmos uses open-source tools to all layers together and helps developers to build blockchain applications.

IBC Protocol: The Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol offers way by which various Blockchain protocols can easily communicate with each other.

Zones are connected to the Cosmos Hub through IBC protocol. It is used to build an extensive range of cross-chain applications such as Multi-chain smart contacts, atomic swaps, token transfers and data and code sharding of different kinds.

Cosmos SDK: It is a collection of various Cosmos Software development Kit (SDKs) that helps any blockchain protocol developer to smoothly run, write or execute the programming code using the Tendermint consensus algorithm. It minimizes various issues by providing the most common functionality contained among blockchains.

Tendermint Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT): It enables developers to create blockchains without having to code from scratch. BFT is a proof-of-stake (PoS) governance mechanism that allows the distributed network of computers running Cosmos Hub in sync.

The validator nodes initially need to stake ATOM, which determines the voting power, to power blockchain and vote on changes.

While earning a portion of the block reward, users can assign their tokens to other validators and allocate votes to them.

Depending on voting preference, users may easily switch between the validators they assigned ATOM to, so they need to work honestly.

Cosmos Hub and Zones- The Cosmos Hub was created to act as a mediator between various independent blockchains created within its network known as zones and it was the first blockchain to introduce on the Cosmos network.

In the network, each zone is able to carry out its necessary functions itself such as creating and distributing new tokens, authenticating accounts and transactions and executing changes to its own blockchain.

Cosmos Hub facilitates communication between all the zones within the network by keeping track of their states.

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Looking forward

Cosmos network is an environment developed on a set of modular, adaptable tools and interchangeable. It uses Tendermint BFT and SDKs to make blockchain more powerful, efficient and easy to develop. It is fully customisable and functions without any central entity facilitating the activities and it offers developers the chance to share tokens and data programmatically.