Recently, you should have seen a lot of news about the cross-chain king "ATOM" calling for orders, all talking about ATOM taking off, so what is ATOM? What is Cosmos? I want to give you a clearer understanding through a simple introduction.
1. Let’s start with the big ones. What is Cosmos?
Cosmos is a blockchain ecosystem, not just a chain, it advocates " interconnection of ten thousand chains ", which is interoperable and scalable .
Interoperability : The well-known Ethereum, Bitcoin, etc. are isolated and single chain ecology, and cross-chain interaction between chains is not possible . The simple explanation is that you cannot directly transfer the token of the Ethereum application Dapp to Bitcoin Coin wallet address. Cosmos is a network framework that makes blockchains interoperable. It can serve as a bridge to connect independent cryptocurrency blockchains and solve the "island effect" between blockchains . To put it simply, Cosmos believes that the main chain is the main chain, do not develop applications on it, each application (DAPP) can be a separate chain
Scalability : Like Ethereum, transaction speed and scalability are an open issue. Because the Dapp developed based on Ethereum can only share the limited resources of a single blockchain, just like a road, when there are more and more cars, the road will be congested over time (a digression, if this is the reason why L2 expansion is popular , to build a few more auxiliary roads for Ethereum to reduce the burden) . And Cosmos can achieve thousands of transactions per second based on Tendermint BFT by getting rid of proof-of-work and optimizing its components .
2. Technical introduction
The Cosmos network consists of three layers:
1) Application layer: update the status of transactions and balances in the entire ecosystem;
2) Network layer: Confirm and process transactions and other partitioned blockchain data transmission and synchronization;
3) Consensus layer: Nodes verify and process new transactions, and reach a consensus to package them into blocks;
The word Cosmos originally meant "universe", which shows its ecological ambition. Integrate the entire " independent " blockchain world into a complete and interoperable ecosystem. There are two powerful tools in Cosmos — Tendermint (BFT) and Cosmos SDK
Tendermint (BFT)
Tendermint BFT is an algorithm used by a network of computers running the Cosmos software to secure the network, verify transactions and submit blocks to the blockchain, which connects to applications through a protocol called the Application Blockchain Interface. Tendermint is a tool and a protocol. It can be understood as a modular blockchain software framework that supports developers to customize their own blockchain without considering the implementation of consensus and network transmission.
Tendermint has Byzantine fault tolerance and is a Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm.
Tendermint mainly consists of two parts:
Tendermint Core: Blockchain consensus engine, responsible for data transmission between nodes and Byzantine consensus.
ABCI: Blockchain Application Programming Interface, also a protocol that supports transaction processing implementation in any language.
Cosmos SDK：
The Cosmos SDK is a set of open source software development kits that allow users to create customized blockchains and issue their own native currencies. Most importantly, the Gas fee when transferring coins can be used in the same blockchain. Use your own currency. In the currency built on Ethereum, the gas fee when transferring currency can only be ETH, which also causes some small currencies to spend more gas fees than the value of the currency to be transferred when transferring currency. However, in the Cosmos ecosystem, Cosmos’ governance token ATOM will be used for handling fees when transferring coins, but ATOM is not forced to be used. Later, some companies provide cross-chain services, allowing some small coins to use IBC in Cosmos ( Inter-Blockchain Communication) to do cross-chain free conversion.
Here is an explanation of IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) by the way:
IBC is the abbreviation of Inter-Blockchain Communication (cross-chain communication) , which is a general cross-chain information transmission protocol launched by < a href =" https://cosmos.network/ "> Cosmos. In its simplest form, IBC connects different blockchains together. So far, blockchains like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and many others operate on their own islands, or each blockchain is its own deserted island, disconnected from the rest of the world or from other blockchains connected, unable to communicate.
The IBC protocol is the carrier of the blockchain social network (communication, exchange of Token and information) . While ensuring the autonomy of each chain and processing transaction speed, IBC makes information and assets cross-chain more decentralized, safe and convenient. With the help of IBC, blockchains using different consensus mechanisms and networks can communicate with each other. As long as their consensus mechanisms meet Fast Finality, all transactions will be packaged quickly and cannot be revoked or changed. Bitcoin and Ethereum do not satisfy Fast Finality, so Cosmos has customized a cross-chain solution for them: two custom blockchains and IBC that support Fast Finality. These two custom chains track the state of Bitcoin and Ethereum respectively. Since these two custom chains are compatible with IBC, and have the latest status of Bitcoin and Ethereum, the cross-chain problem is solved.
3. Ecological case
There are currently many access to the Cosmos ecological chain. You can refer to some chain cases below. Of course, the familiar decentralized stable currency Terra, the information hub Irisnet Hub, the decentralized trading platform Binance Chain, the oracle machine Band, and the decentralized lending Kava , Decentralized Autonomous Organization Aragon, etc. are all within the Cosmos ecosystem
4. Platform Token - ATOM
ATOM is the governance token of Cosmos . The blockchain in the Cosmos network uses the Tendermint consensus algorithm. This algorithm guarantees that as long as more than 2/3 of the nodes are honest nodes, it can ensure that the final voting results are consistent, thereby achieving real-time final consistency and avoiding the chain fork. In order for participants (validators to be nodes) to power the blockchain and vote on changes, they first need to stake ATOMs. To become a validator, a node needs to be among the top 100 nodes staking ATOMs, and voting rights are determined by the number of ATOMs. Users can also delegate their tokens to other validators, assigning them votes while still earning block rewards.
ATOM mainly has the following three functions to improve the mechanism of the entire blockchain network:
1. Pledge: Users can earn part of the block rewards by staking ATOM.
2. Voting: As a governance token, holders can vote on proposals.
3. Payment: ATOM will also be used as a fee for using the Cosmos network.
5. Project benchmarking
When discussing Cosmos, Polkadot must also be mentioned. The two projects Polkadot and Cosmos are called " cross-chain duo ", both of which focus on cross-chain. The following table shows the different concepts advocated by the two:
6. Summary
The future blockchain must be interconnected, and Cosmos is also a cross-chain project created to allow chains to coexist. As long as the blockchain matures, the demand for cross-chain will also increase day by day. It can be seen that Cosmos will bring more significant influence in the field of cross-chain technology in the future. Whoever can push the technology forward the first step will be the star of tomorrow.
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