Podcast notes – Atom 2.0 with Zaki Manian and Sam Hart on Blockcrunch – “Pluralism is the way of Cosmos”

Guests: Zaki, Sam
Host: Jason Choi

Kyle Samani tweet: Solana = fat protocol thesis, while Cosmos = appchain thesis

Zaki – Cosmos origin is pluralistic view, a language / set of components to build a network of blockchains

Sam – architecture gives you a lot of control as an app designer, a next-gen platform, very customizable

2019 – Cosmos Hub launches, go to market – first production PoS; Binance uses SDK to build Binance chain; Akash, Kava launch

2020 – IBC ready and launches; then Osmosis launches; a giant forest of blockchains begins to grow

2021 – protocol controlled value / liquidity, MEV, shared security – can incorporate these primitives into ATOM and build a great value accrual story

Jason: initially didn’t think people would pay for Polkadot’s parachains (DOT), and that Cosmos ATOM didn’t have a great value accrual story

New monetary policy
-Existing target is 2/3 of tokens staked (when issuance rate changes)
-Now introducing liquid staking – remove the adaptive issuance model
Extra initial issuance to kickstart process, but lower tail emissions – lots of community debate about this
-ATOM should capture real revenue

Will not nominate a single liquid staking protocol as the default – let the market choose among staking solutions

“Pluralism is the way of Cosmos”

Interchain security
-Appchains can rely on Cosmos validators to secure their own chain (similar to rollups on Ethereum)
ATOM validators will also validate consumer chains (the appchains)
-Help align communities between appchains and ATOM holders

Interchain scheduler
-buy / sell NFT for block space at a specified future time
marketplace for block space futures
-protocol can guarantee delivery of these NFTs

What reason for an app chain to integrate scheduler?
-it’s purely elective, no requirement for use
-eg, for Osmosis, gives them way to consolidate management of multi-chain MEV

Cosmos new chains will ask, how to align with builders / community
-right now it’s only info sharing
-but there’s demand for economic integration

Interchain allocator
-tool for Cosmos hub to hold and delegate assets
-new governance features to allocate funds across community

Cosmos shared security philosophy
-Cosmos rejects random committee based security – eg, sharding, Polkadot, Near
-converging on shared security that’s robust – mesh security, interchain security (different use cases for each)

Cosmos chains are generally all heading toward economic and political integration

Jason – Atom 2.0 – creating a more unified economy and more value flow back to $Atom

Timelines
1. Liquid staking developed by Iqlusion – ready to be merged into Cosmos SDK
2. Interchain security – live by January / Q1 2023
3. Allocator – R&D for 3 months, still a lot of open questions
4. Governance – groups module has been written