01-13-2022, 10:41 AM -
What is Cosmos (ATOM)?
Cosmos is known as a decentralized independent parallel blockchain network, each powered by BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus algorithms such as Tendermint consensus. In other words, Cosmos is a blockchain ecosystem that can scale and work with each other. Before Cosmos, transactions were seen in the form of silos (incompatible and insensitive to the factors in the environment), without being able to communicate with each other. It required a strong and intense effort to create a blockchain and make these blocks transact quickly. At this stage, Cosmos is solving these blockchain-related problems with a new technical vision. In order to understand this vision brought by Cosmos, it is necessary to go down to the foundation of blockchain technology.
Who is the Founder of Cosmos?
The engineers of Tendermint, the doorway to the Cosmos environment, are Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchman. Although Kwon still appears as the chief architect, he left the CEO role in 2020. Peng Zhong took over as Tendermint's CEO, making radical changes in the names of the board of directors. Their aim is to improve the experience offered to developers, to create an enthusiastic community to use Cosmos and to create educational resources on the subject.
What is Blockchain?
In order to understand what a blockchain is, it is necessary to know that there are blockchain validators. These validators can be benign or malicious. Even if some (less than one-third) of the validators are malicious, it can be described as a digital ledger recorded by a set of validators that stays true. Each party keeps a copy of the ledger on its own computer, updating it according to the rules defined by the protocol when they receive the transaction blocks. The purpose of blockchain technology is to make sure that the ledger is copied correctly, in other words, accurate copying becomes important as every honest party can see the same version of the ledger instantly. The main contribution of blockchain technology is that parties have the priority to share a digital ledger without having to act under a central authority. The first and most famous application of blockchain technology is Bitcoin, a decentralized currency. From a more technical point of view in the blockchain network, it is known as the descriptive state machine that is replicated across all nodes, which maintains consensus security unless more than one-third of the Blockchain providers.
A state machine is a program that keeps the operations performed and changes it when it receives input. There is software that can represent different things depending on the application (e.g. token balances for a cryptocurrency) and transactions that change the state. (for example, removing balances from one account and adding them to another).
The concept of descriptor means that when the same operations are repeated from the same occurrence state, the same outcome situation will always occur.
Consensus security refers to the fact that every honest node from which the state machine is replicated must see the same state momentarily. When nodes receive blocks of transactions, they receive transactions that are validated by more than two-thirds of the block itself, the maintainers, called validators, that each transaction is valid. More than a third of validators are Byzantine (nested), meaning security is guaranteed as long as they are not malicious.
From an architectural point of view, blockchains can be divided into three conceptual layers, these are:
Application: It can be defined as the part responsible for updating the state, which is responsible for processing a series of transactions, i.e. transactions.
Networking: It can be defined as the part responsible for the dissemination of transactions and consensus messages.
Agreement: Allows hubs to concede to the present status of the framework.
The state machine is equivalent to the application layer. It describes the state of the application and its state transition functions. Other layers are responsible for replicating the state machine across all nodes connected to the network.
How Cosmos Adapts to the Comprehensive Blockchain Ecosystem
The Story of Bitcoin (Blockchain 1.0)
To understand how Cosmos fits into the blockchain ecosystem, it is necessary to understand the concept of blockchain historically. The first blockchain is known as Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer digital currency created in 2008 that uses a new consensus mechanism known as Proof of Work. The first decentralized application on the blockchain is Bitcoin. Soon after, individuals realized the potential of decentralized applications and started to produce with the desire to build new ones in the world of these applications. In the early days of the Bitcoin blockchain era, there were two options for developing decentralized applications, known as forking the Bitcoin codebase or creating a new system on that codebase. However, the Bitcoin codebase has been very monolithic (all three layers; networking, consensus, and implementation,). In addition, better tools were needed due to Bitcoin's programming language being limited and not user friendly.
The Story of Ethereum (Blockchain 2.0)
In 2014, Ethereum entered the ecosystem with a new project to create decentralized applications. Ethereum has achieved this by transforming the application layer into a virtual machine called the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This virtual machine was created with the ability to process programs called smart contracts that any developer could deploy on the Ethereum blockchain without permission. This new approach has allowed thousands of developers to start building decentralized applications. However, the limitations of this approach were soon apparent and still remain today.
Ethereum Restrictions
Scalability
The first constraint is known as scaling. Decentralized applications built on Ethereum are blocked at a shared rate of 15 transactions per second. This is on the grounds that Ethereum presently utilizes Proof of Work and Ethereum decentralized applications vie for the restricted assets of a solitary blockchain.
Availability
The second constraint is known as the small scale flexibility given to developers. EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) optimizes for average usage operation as it is a sandbox that should keep all usage processes available. This means that developers have to compromise on the design and efficiency of their applications (for example, requiring the use of the account model on a payment platform where the UTXO model may be preferred). Among other factors, they are limited to a few programming languages and automatic code generation cannot be implemented.
Independence
The third limit is that every application is restricted as far as autonomy, as all applications share a similar hidden climate. This constraint creates two management layers: the application layer and the most fundamental layer. The application layer is limited to the most basic layer. If an error occurs in the application, nothing can be done about it without the approval of the management of the Ethereum platform. If the application requires a new feature in the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), approval of the Ethereum platform management is required to accept this feature.
These restrictions are not unique to Ethereum, they are encountered by all blockchains trying to create a single platform that will fit all use cases. The difference of Cosmos is experienced exactly at this point.
Vision of Cosmos (Blockchain 3.0)
Cosmos’ vision is to make it simple for designers to make blockchains and conquer hindrances between blockchains by permitting them to execute with one another. Now, the primary objective is to make a web of blockchains that can speak with one another in a decentralized manner. Thanks to Cosmos, blockchains can maintain their autonomy, process transactions quickly, and communicate with other blockchains in the ecosystem. This vision is accomplished through a bunch of open source instruments, for example, Tendermint, Cosmos SDK and IBC intended to permit individuals to rapidly assemble private, secure, adaptable and interoperable blockchain applications. A closer look at the technical architecture of the Cosmos network as well as some of the most important tools in the ecosystem, Cosmos is an open source community project originally created by the Tendermint team. In addition, each user has the authority to create additional tools on this platform to take the developer ecosystem to a higher level.
What is Tendermint BFT and ABCI?
Up to this point, constructing a blockchain required structure three layers (Networking, Consensus and Implementation) without any preparation. Ethereum has improved on the advancement of decentralized applications by giving a virtual machine blockchain where every client can send custom rationale, as keen agreements. However, it did not provide a simplicity for the development of blockchains. Similar to Bitcoin, Go-Ethereum stays a solid innovation stack that is hard to fork and redo. This is where Tendermint, created by Jae Kwon in 2014, comes into play. Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) is an answer that bundles the organization and agreement layers of a blockchain into a nonexclusive motor, permitting engineers to zero in on application improvement as opposed to complex underlying protocol. Accordingly, Tendermint saves many long stretches of advancement time. He also determined the name of Tendermint's Complex Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm used in the Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) engine.
The Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) motor associates the application with an attachment convention called the Application Blockchain Interface. This protocol can be applied to any programming language, thus enabling developers to choose a language that suits their needs. However, these features are not limited to this information. The features that make Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) your new technology blockchain engine are explained as follows.
Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) Features
Public or Private Blockchain: Tendermint BFT only handles networking and consensus for one blockchain; in other words, it means that nodes help spread transactions and validators agree on a set of transactions to be added to the blockchain. It is the application layer's role to define how the validator set is created. In this way, creators can make both public and private blockchains on top of the Tendermint BFT motor. If the application defines that validators are selected based on how many tokens they have, the blockchain qualifies as Proof of Stake. Notwithstanding, if the application characterizes that a restricted arrangement of pre-approved substances can be validators, the blockchain can be described as either permissioned or permissionless. Designers have the opportunity to alter the guidelines that characterize how the blockchain's validator set changes.
Elite: Tendermint BFT can have a one second square time and can handle a great many exchanges each second.
Instant Precision: A feature of the Tendermint consensus algorithm is instant precision. This means that as long as more than a third of validators are honest, the bifurcation never occurs. Users can be assured that their transactions are terminated as soon as a block is created (which is not the case with Proof of Work blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum).
Security: The Tendermint consensus is not tolerant of errors, but is also liable to errors. If a fork occurs in the blockchain, there is a way to determine the liability.
Cosmos SDK and Other Application Layer Frameworks
Tendermint BFT provides the ability to reduce the development time of a blockchain, but building a secure ABCI (Application Blockchain Interface) application from scratch is difficult. The reason the Cosmos SDK exists is based on this challenge. Cosmos (Atom ) SDK is a summed up structure that improves on the way toward building secure blockchain applications on Tendermint BFT. It is based on two main principles, which are:
Measured quality: The objective of the Cosmos SDK is to fabricate a biological system of modules that permit designers to handily turn application-explicit blockchains without coding each and every usefulness of their applications from scratch. Every client can make a module for the Cosmos SDK, and utilizing blockchain-prepared underlying modules is just about as basic as bringing them into the application. As an example, the Tendermint team is building a set of core modules required for the Cosmos Hub. These modules can be used by any developer when creating their own applications. In addition, developers can create new modules to customize their applications. As the Cosmos network evolves, the ecosystem of SDK modules will expand, making it increasingly easy to develop complex blockchain applications.
Capabilities-Based Security: Capabilities restrict security boundaries between modules, allowing developers to better reason about the composability of modules and limit the scope of malicious or unexpected interactions.
The Cosmos SDK also comes with a set of useful developer tools for building command line interfaces, REST servers, and various other commonly used utility libraries. Also, the Cosmos SDK is designed to be modular, like all Cosmos tools. TToday, it permits engineers to expand on top of Tendermint BFT. Notwithstanding, it can likewise be utilized with some other agreement motors that carry out ABCI. Over time, multiple SDKs are expected to emerge, built with different architectural models and compatible with multiple consensus engines. The area where all of these are delivered together is the Cosmos Network.
ethermint
Quite possibly the main highlights about the Cosmos SDK is that its seclusion permits engineers to move practically any current blockchain codebase accessible in Golang onto the Cosmos SDK. As an example, Ethermint is known as a project that ported the Ethereum virtual machine to the SDK module. Ethermint works exactly like Ethereum but also takes advantage of all the features of Tendermint BFT. All current Ethereum instruments (Truffle, Metamask, and so forth) are Ethermint viable and permit to move keen agreements without extra work.
Why Build a Blockchain with Cosmos SDK when Decentralized Application Can be Embedded Above Virtual Machine Blockchain?
This question becomes important given that most decentralized applications today are developed on virtual machine blockchains such as Ethereum. First, it should be noted that the reason for this phenomenon is that so far the development of blockchains is much more difficult than smart contracts. Thanks to the Cosmos SDK, the situation has changed and has been positively updated. Project developers can easily develop application-specific blockchains, which have several advantages. They provide greater flexibility, security, performance and independence, among others. A person who does not want to create their own blockchain can distribute their smart contracts to Ethermint, making them compatible with Cosmos.
Connecting Blockchains - IBC
Now that it's a way for developers to quickly create customized blockchains, here's how to link blockchains together. The association between blockchains is given through a convention called the Inter-Blockchain Communication convention (IBC). IBC leverages the immediate-certification feature of the Tendermint consensus (although it can work with any "fast-certainty" blockchain engine) to allow heterogeneous chains to transfer value (i.e. tokens) or data to each other.
What Are Heterogeneous Chains?
Heterogeneous chains are divided into two, these are:
Various layers: Heterogeneous chains have various layers, that is, they can contrast by they way they carry out the systems administration, agreement, and execution parts .To be viable with IBC, a blockchain just necessities to follow a couple of prerequisites; the most significant of these is the requirement for the agreement layer to have quick exactness. Proof of Work chains (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) do not fall into this category as they have probabilistic certainty.
Autonomy: Each blockchain is secured by a bunch of validators whose work is to agree on the following square to be focused on the blockchain. In Proof of Work blockchains, these validators are called excavators. An independent blockchain is a blockchain with its own set of validators. In many cases, it is important that blockchains are independent, as validators are responsible for changing the situation. In Ethereum, all applications are controlled by a typical arrangement of validators. Therefore, each application has only a limited number of independences. IBC allows heterogeneous blockchains to transfer tokens and data; This means that blockchains with different implementations and validator clusters are interoperable.For instance, it permits public and private blockchains to move tokens to one another. Currently, no other blockchain framework provides this level of interoperability.
How Does IBC Work?
The idea behind IBC's system is quite simple. Consider a model where a record on affix A needs to send 10 tokens (ATOM) to chain B
Follow-up
Constantly, chain B gets the headers of chain An and the other way around. This ensures that each chain follows the other's validator set. In essence, each chain runs the other's client.
Measured quality: The objective of the Cosmos SDK is to fabricate a biological system of modules that permit designers to handily turn application-explicit blockchains without coding each and every usefulness of their applications from scratch. Every client can make a module for the Cosmos SDK, and utilizing blockchain-prepared underlying modules is just about as basic as bringing them into the application. As an example, the Tendermint team is building a set of core modules required for the Cosmos Hub. These modules can be used by any developer when creating their own applications.Moreover, designers can make new modules to modify their applications. As the Cosmos network advances, the biological system of SDK modules will extend, making it progressively simple to foster complex blockchain applications.
Capabilities-Based Security: Capabilities restrict security boundaries between modules, allowing developers to better reason about the composability of modules and limit the scope of malicious or unexpected interactions.
The Cosmos SDK also comes with a set of useful developer tools for building command line interfaces, REST servers, and various other commonly used utility libraries. Also, the Cosmos SDK is designed to be modular, like all Cosmos tools. TToday, it permits engineers to expand on top of Tendermint BFT. Notwithstanding, it can likewise be utilized with some other agreement motors that carry out ABCI.After some time, various SDKs are relied upon to arise, worked with various engineering models and viable with different agreement motors. The area where all of these are delivered together is the Cosmos Network.
ethermint
Quite possibly the main highlights about the Cosmos SDK is that its seclusion permits engineers to move practically any current blockchain codebase accessible in Golang onto the Cosmos SDK. As an example, Ethermint is known as a project that ported the Ethereum virtual machine to the SDK module. Ethermint works exactly like Ethereum but also takes advantage of all the features of Tendermint BFT. All current Ethereum instruments (Truffle, Metamask, and so forth) are Ethermint viable and permit to move keen agreements without extra work.
Why Build a Blockchain with Cosmos SDK when Decentralized Application Can be Embedded Above Virtual Machine Blockchain?
This question becomes important given that most decentralized applications today are developed on virtual machine blockchains such as Ethereum. First, it should be noted that the reason for this phenomenon is that so far the development of blockchains is much more difficult than smart contracts. Thanks to the Cosmos SDK, the situation has changed and has been positively updated. Venture designers can without much of a stretch foster application-explicit blockchains, which enjoy a few benefits. They provide greater flexibility, security, performance and independence, among others. A person who does not want to create their own blockchain can distribute their smart contracts to Ethermint, making them compatible with Cosmos.
Connecting Blockchains - IBC
Now that it's a way for developers to quickly create customized blockchains, here's how to link blockchains together. The association between blockchains is given through a convention called the Inter-Blockchain Communication convention (IBC). IBC leverages the immediate-certification feature of the Tendermint consensus (although it can work with any "fast-certainty" blockchain engine) to allow heterogeneous chains to transfer value (i.e. tokens) or data to each other.
What Are Heterogeneous Chains?
Heterogeneous chains are divided into two, these are:
Various layers: Heterogeneous chains have various layers, that is, they can contrast by they way they carry out the systems administration, agreement, and execution parts .To be viable with IBC, a blockchain just necessities to follow a couple of prerequisites; the most significant of these is the requirement for the agreement layer to have quick exactness. Proof of Work chains (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) do not fall into this category as they have probabilistic certainty.
Autonomy: Each blockchain is secured by a bunch of validators whose work is to agree on the following square to be focused on the blockchain. In Proof of Work blockchains, these validators are called excavators. An independent blockchain is a blockchain with its own set of validators. In many cases, it is important that blockchains are independent, as validators are responsible for changing the situation. In Ethereum, all applications are controlled by a typical arrangement of validators. Therefore, each application has only a limited number of independences. IBC allows heterogeneous blockchains to transfer tokens and data; This means that blockchains with different implementations and validator clusters are interoperable.For instance, it permits public and private blockchains to move tokens to one another. Currently, no other blockchain framework provides this level of interoperability.
How Does IBC Work?
The idea behind IBC's system is quite simple. Consider a model where a record on affix A needs to send 10 tokens (ATOM) to chain B
Follow-up
Constantly, chain B gets the headers of chain An and the other way around. This ensures that each chain follows the other's validator set. In essence, each chain runs the other's client.
Putting together
When the IBC transfer is initiated, the ATOM is locked (attached) in the A chain.
Proof Relay
Then, a proof that 10 ATOMs are connected is transferred from chain A to chain B.
Verification
If the proof is verified in chain B against the title of chain A and is considered valid, 10 ATOM coupons are generated in chain B.
It should be noted that since ATOM exists only in chain A, ATOM created in chain B is not real ATOM. These are a representation of the ATOM in chain A on B and a proof that the ATOMs are frozen in chain A.
A similar mechanism is used to unlock the ATOM when it returns to its starting chains.
Designing the “Internet of Blockchains”
IBC is a convention that permits two heterogeneous blockchains to move tokens to one another.
One of the ideas put forward is to connect each blockchain in the network directly via IBC connections. The main problem with this approach is that the number of connections in the network increases quadratic with the number of blockchains. In case there are 100 blockchains in the organization and every one of them needs to keep an IBC association with one another, that would mean 4950 associations. This speed can get the system out of control. To tackle this, Cosmos proposes a measured design with two blockchain classes: Hubs and Zones.
Zones are heterogeneous blockchains that are viewed as ordinary, while Hubs are blockchains explicitly intended to associate Zones together. When it establishes an IBC connection with a Zone and a Hub, it can automatically access (ie send and receive) all other Zones connected to it. Thus, each Zone just necessitates building up a predetermined number of associations with a set number of Hubs. Hubs also prevent Double Spending between Zones. This implies that when the Zone gets a token from the Hub, it just requirements to trust the underlying Zone of that token and the Hub. The main Hub dispatched on the Cosmos Network is known as the Cosmos Hub. Cosmos Hub is a public Proof of Stake blockchain whose local marking token is called ATOM and exchange charges will be paid in various tokens
Bridging Non-Tendermint Chains
The Cosmos structure demonstrates how Tendermint-based chains can work together. However, Cosmos is not limited to Tendermint chains. Indeed, any kind of blockchain can be associated with Cosmos. At this stage, there are two situations that should be distinguished: Fast precision chains and probabilistic precision chains.
Fast Certainty Chains
Blockchains using any fast-firm consensus algorithm can connect with Cosmos by adapting the IBC. For example, if Ethereum had migrated to Casper FFG (Friendly Finality Gadget), a direct link could be established between it and the Cosmos Ecosystem by adapting IBC to work with Casper.
Probabilistic Certainty Chains
For blockchains that do not have fast accuracy, such as Proof of Work chains, transactions are a bit more complex. A special type of proxy chain called Peg-Zone is used for these chains. Peg-Zone is called a blockchain that monitors the state of another blockchain. The Peg-Zone itself has fast accuracy and is therefore compatible with IBC. Peg-Zone's role is to provide certainty for the blockchain it bridges. To explain with an example:
Example: Ethereum Peg-Zone
It is wanted to connect the Proof of Work Ethereum blockchain to make it conceivable to send tokens among Ethereum and Cosmos.Since Proof of Work Ethereum lacks fast precision, a Stake Zone should be made to go about as an extension between the two. For this, the Peg-Zone must first decide on a certainty threshold for the starting chain. All in all, it can consider a specific square of the beginning chain to be last when 100 squares are added after it. Second, by deploying a contract on the main Ethereum blockchain, when users want to send tokens from Ethereum to Cosmos, they start by sending tokens to that contract. The contract is then posted in the Peg-Zone, which is a representation of these assets by freezing the assets and after 100 blocks. A comparative system is utilized to send resources back to the Ethereum chain.
Peg-Zone also allows users to send any token living in the Cosmos to the Ethereum chain (Cosmos tokens are represented on the Ethereum chain as ERC-20. The Tendermint group is dealing with a Peg-Zone execution for the Ethereum chain named Peggy. Peg-Zone Zones need to be customized for the specific chain they are bridging. Making an Ethereum Peg-Zone is a basic interaction on the grounds that Ethereum is account-based and has keen agreements. However, creating a Bitcoin Peg-Zone can be more challenging than an Ethereum Peg-Zone.
Solving Scalability
Since it has been announced that blockchains can be created easily, another issue that needs to be emphasized is the scalability feature. Cosmos benefits from two types of scalability:
Vertical scalability: It covers the ways to scale the blockchain itself. By moving away from Proof of Work and streamlining its segments, Tendermint BFT can arrive at a huge number of exchanges each second.For instance, an application like a virtual machine (eg, Ethereum virtual machine) forces a much lower cap on exchange throughput than an application in which exchange types and state transition functions are directly embedded (eg, a standard Cosmos SDK implementation). This is one of the reasons application-specific blockchains make sense.
Horizontal scalability: While the consensus engine and implementation are highly optimized, at some point a single chain's throughput inevitably encounters a hurdle that it cannot exceed. This is called the limit of vertical scaling. The solution to go beyond that is to move to multi-chain architectures. All in all, having various equal chains showing a similar application and hurry to a typical arrangement of validators makes blockchains hypothetically limitlessly versatile.
The good vertical scalability that Cosmos offers will in itself be a huge improvement over existing blockchain solutions. Afterward, after the consummation of the IBC module, it will execute even versatility arrangements.
In Conclusion What is Cosmos in Three Short Points?
Cosmos makes blockchains powerful and easy to develop, thanks to the modularity of Tendermint BFT and Cosmos SDK. Cosmos allows blockchains to transfer value with each other through IBC and Peg-Zones while maintaining their autonomy.
Cosmos empowers blockchain applications to scale to a huge number of clients through even and vertical versatility arrangements. After all, Cosmos is not a product but an ecosystem built on a set of modular, adaptable and interchangeable tools. Designers are urged to partake in working on existing instruments and making new ones to make the guarantee of blockchain innovation a reality. These tools are the foundation needed to build the decentralized internet and global financial system of tomorrow.
How Many Cosmos (ATOM) Coins Are In The Market?
ATOM coin has a unique total supply of 260,906,513 units. These cryptocurrencies are earned by staking rather than mining.
Two private sales were made for ATOM in January 2017, followed by another public sale in April of the same year. After these two sales, a price of approximately $0.10 per ATOM coin was established and the total market value reached $16 million. The distribution of the total amount of tokens produced was made by allocating 80 percent to investors and the remaining 20 percent to two companies named All In Bits and Interchain Foundation.
The ATOM tokens of the Cosmos network have been likened to ASIC hardware used for Bitcoin mining.
Is the Cosmos Network Safe?
It is stated in this article that Cosmos uses the Proof of Stake consensus algorithm. Verifying nodes with large amounts of ATOM tokens are more likely to be selected to validate transactions and earn rewards. Nodes that are found not to act in accordance with the rules may be penalized and face the risk of losing their tokens.
How to Buy Cosmos (ATOM)?
For those who want to invest in crypto money, the answer to the question of how to buy and sell Cosmos (ATOM) is often wondered. For this, either mining is done or these transactions need to use a specially created cryptocurrency exchange.
Cosmos is known as a decentralized independent parallel blockchain network, each powered by BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus algorithms such as Tendermint consensus. In other words, Cosmos is a blockchain ecosystem that can scale and work with each other. Before Cosmos, transactions were seen in the form of silos (incompatible and insensitive to the factors in the environment), without being able to communicate with each other. It required a strong and intense effort to create a blockchain and make these blocks transact quickly. At this stage, Cosmos is solving these blockchain-related problems with a new technical vision. In order to understand this vision brought by Cosmos, it is necessary to go down to the foundation of blockchain technology.
Who is the Founder of Cosmos?
The engineers of Tendermint, the doorway to the Cosmos environment, are Jae Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Buchman. Although Kwon still appears as the chief architect, he left the CEO role in 2020. Peng Zhong took over as Tendermint's CEO, making radical changes in the names of the board of directors. Their aim is to improve the experience offered to developers, to create an enthusiastic community to use Cosmos and to create educational resources on the subject.
What is Blockchain?
In order to understand what a blockchain is, it is necessary to know that there are blockchain validators. These validators can be benign or malicious. Even if some (less than one-third) of the validators are malicious, it can be described as a digital ledger recorded by a set of validators that stays true. Each party keeps a copy of the ledger on its own computer, updating it according to the rules defined by the protocol when they receive the transaction blocks. The purpose of blockchain technology is to make sure that the ledger is copied correctly, in other words, accurate copying becomes important as every honest party can see the same version of the ledger instantly. The main contribution of blockchain technology is that parties have the priority to share a digital ledger without having to act under a central authority. The first and most famous application of blockchain technology is Bitcoin, a decentralized currency. From a more technical point of view in the blockchain network, it is known as the descriptive state machine that is replicated across all nodes, which maintains consensus security unless more than one-third of the Blockchain providers.
A state machine is a program that keeps the operations performed and changes it when it receives input. There is software that can represent different things depending on the application (e.g. token balances for a cryptocurrency) and transactions that change the state. (for example, removing balances from one account and adding them to another).
The concept of descriptor means that when the same operations are repeated from the same occurrence state, the same outcome situation will always occur.
Consensus security refers to the fact that every honest node from which the state machine is replicated must see the same state momentarily. When nodes receive blocks of transactions, they receive transactions that are validated by more than two-thirds of the block itself, the maintainers, called validators, that each transaction is valid. More than a third of validators are Byzantine (nested), meaning security is guaranteed as long as they are not malicious.
From an architectural point of view, blockchains can be divided into three conceptual layers, these are:
Application: It can be defined as the part responsible for updating the state, which is responsible for processing a series of transactions, i.e. transactions.
Networking: It can be defined as the part responsible for the dissemination of transactions and consensus messages.
Agreement: Allows hubs to concede to the present status of the framework.
The state machine is equivalent to the application layer. It describes the state of the application and its state transition functions. Other layers are responsible for replicating the state machine across all nodes connected to the network.
How Cosmos Adapts to the Comprehensive Blockchain Ecosystem
The Story of Bitcoin (Blockchain 1.0)
To understand how Cosmos fits into the blockchain ecosystem, it is necessary to understand the concept of blockchain historically. The first blockchain is known as Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer digital currency created in 2008 that uses a new consensus mechanism known as Proof of Work. The first decentralized application on the blockchain is Bitcoin. Soon after, individuals realized the potential of decentralized applications and started to produce with the desire to build new ones in the world of these applications. In the early days of the Bitcoin blockchain era, there were two options for developing decentralized applications, known as forking the Bitcoin codebase or creating a new system on that codebase. However, the Bitcoin codebase has been very monolithic (all three layers; networking, consensus, and implementation,). In addition, better tools were needed due to Bitcoin's programming language being limited and not user friendly.
The Story of Ethereum (Blockchain 2.0)
In 2014, Ethereum entered the ecosystem with a new project to create decentralized applications. Ethereum has achieved this by transforming the application layer into a virtual machine called the Ethereum Virtual Machine. This virtual machine was created with the ability to process programs called smart contracts that any developer could deploy on the Ethereum blockchain without permission. This new approach has allowed thousands of developers to start building decentralized applications. However, the limitations of this approach were soon apparent and still remain today.
Ethereum Restrictions
Scalability
The first constraint is known as scaling. Decentralized applications built on Ethereum are blocked at a shared rate of 15 transactions per second. This is on the grounds that Ethereum presently utilizes Proof of Work and Ethereum decentralized applications vie for the restricted assets of a solitary blockchain.
Availability
The second constraint is known as the small scale flexibility given to developers. EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) optimizes for average usage operation as it is a sandbox that should keep all usage processes available. This means that developers have to compromise on the design and efficiency of their applications (for example, requiring the use of the account model on a payment platform where the UTXO model may be preferred). Among other factors, they are limited to a few programming languages and automatic code generation cannot be implemented.
Independence
The third limit is that every application is restricted as far as autonomy, as all applications share a similar hidden climate. This constraint creates two management layers: the application layer and the most fundamental layer. The application layer is limited to the most basic layer. If an error occurs in the application, nothing can be done about it without the approval of the management of the Ethereum platform. If the application requires a new feature in the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), approval of the Ethereum platform management is required to accept this feature.
These restrictions are not unique to Ethereum, they are encountered by all blockchains trying to create a single platform that will fit all use cases. The difference of Cosmos is experienced exactly at this point.
Vision of Cosmos (Blockchain 3.0)
Cosmos’ vision is to make it simple for designers to make blockchains and conquer hindrances between blockchains by permitting them to execute with one another. Now, the primary objective is to make a web of blockchains that can speak with one another in a decentralized manner. Thanks to Cosmos, blockchains can maintain their autonomy, process transactions quickly, and communicate with other blockchains in the ecosystem. This vision is accomplished through a bunch of open source instruments, for example, Tendermint, Cosmos SDK and IBC intended to permit individuals to rapidly assemble private, secure, adaptable and interoperable blockchain applications. A closer look at the technical architecture of the Cosmos network as well as some of the most important tools in the ecosystem, Cosmos is an open source community project originally created by the Tendermint team. In addition, each user has the authority to create additional tools on this platform to take the developer ecosystem to a higher level.
What is Tendermint BFT and ABCI?
Up to this point, constructing a blockchain required structure three layers (Networking, Consensus and Implementation) without any preparation. Ethereum has improved on the advancement of decentralized applications by giving a virtual machine blockchain where every client can send custom rationale, as keen agreements. However, it did not provide a simplicity for the development of blockchains. Similar to Bitcoin, Go-Ethereum stays a solid innovation stack that is hard to fork and redo. This is where Tendermint, created by Jae Kwon in 2014, comes into play. Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) is an answer that bundles the organization and agreement layers of a blockchain into a nonexclusive motor, permitting engineers to zero in on application improvement as opposed to complex underlying protocol. Accordingly, Tendermint saves many long stretches of advancement time. He also determined the name of Tendermint's Complex Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm used in the Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) engine.
The Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) motor associates the application with an attachment convention called the Application Blockchain Interface. This protocol can be applied to any programming language, thus enabling developers to choose a language that suits their needs. However, these features are not limited to this information. The features that make Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) your new technology blockchain engine are explained as follows.
Tendermint BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerance) Features
Public or Private Blockchain: Tendermint BFT only handles networking and consensus for one blockchain; in other words, it means that nodes help spread transactions and validators agree on a set of transactions to be added to the blockchain. It is the application layer's role to define how the validator set is created. In this way, creators can make both public and private blockchains on top of the Tendermint BFT motor. If the application defines that validators are selected based on how many tokens they have, the blockchain qualifies as Proof of Stake. Notwithstanding, if the application characterizes that a restricted arrangement of pre-approved substances can be validators, the blockchain can be described as either permissioned or permissionless. Designers have the opportunity to alter the guidelines that characterize how the blockchain's validator set changes.
Elite: Tendermint BFT can have a one second square time and can handle a great many exchanges each second.
Instant Precision: A feature of the Tendermint consensus algorithm is instant precision. This means that as long as more than a third of validators are honest, the bifurcation never occurs. Users can be assured that their transactions are terminated as soon as a block is created (which is not the case with Proof of Work blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum).
Security: The Tendermint consensus is not tolerant of errors, but is also liable to errors. If a fork occurs in the blockchain, there is a way to determine the liability.
Cosmos SDK and Other Application Layer Frameworks
Tendermint BFT provides the ability to reduce the development time of a blockchain, but building a secure ABCI (Application Blockchain Interface) application from scratch is difficult. The reason the Cosmos SDK exists is based on this challenge. Cosmos (Atom ) SDK is a summed up structure that improves on the way toward building secure blockchain applications on Tendermint BFT. It is based on two main principles, which are:
Measured quality: The objective of the Cosmos SDK is to fabricate a biological system of modules that permit designers to handily turn application-explicit blockchains without coding each and every usefulness of their applications from scratch. Every client can make a module for the Cosmos SDK, and utilizing blockchain-prepared underlying modules is just about as basic as bringing them into the application. As an example, the Tendermint team is building a set of core modules required for the Cosmos Hub. These modules can be used by any developer when creating their own applications. In addition, developers can create new modules to customize their applications. As the Cosmos network evolves, the ecosystem of SDK modules will expand, making it increasingly easy to develop complex blockchain applications.
Capabilities-Based Security: Capabilities restrict security boundaries between modules, allowing developers to better reason about the composability of modules and limit the scope of malicious or unexpected interactions.
The Cosmos SDK also comes with a set of useful developer tools for building command line interfaces, REST servers, and various other commonly used utility libraries. Also, the Cosmos SDK is designed to be modular, like all Cosmos tools. TToday, it permits engineers to expand on top of Tendermint BFT. Notwithstanding, it can likewise be utilized with some other agreement motors that carry out ABCI. Over time, multiple SDKs are expected to emerge, built with different architectural models and compatible with multiple consensus engines. The area where all of these are delivered together is the Cosmos Network.
ethermint
Quite possibly the main highlights about the Cosmos SDK is that its seclusion permits engineers to move practically any current blockchain codebase accessible in Golang onto the Cosmos SDK. As an example, Ethermint is known as a project that ported the Ethereum virtual machine to the SDK module. Ethermint works exactly like Ethereum but also takes advantage of all the features of Tendermint BFT. All current Ethereum instruments (Truffle, Metamask, and so forth) are Ethermint viable and permit to move keen agreements without extra work.
Why Build a Blockchain with Cosmos SDK when Decentralized Application Can be Embedded Above Virtual Machine Blockchain?
This question becomes important given that most decentralized applications today are developed on virtual machine blockchains such as Ethereum. First, it should be noted that the reason for this phenomenon is that so far the development of blockchains is much more difficult than smart contracts. Thanks to the Cosmos SDK, the situation has changed and has been positively updated. Project developers can easily develop application-specific blockchains, which have several advantages. They provide greater flexibility, security, performance and independence, among others. A person who does not want to create their own blockchain can distribute their smart contracts to Ethermint, making them compatible with Cosmos.
Connecting Blockchains - IBC
Now that it's a way for developers to quickly create customized blockchains, here's how to link blockchains together. The association between blockchains is given through a convention called the Inter-Blockchain Communication convention (IBC). IBC leverages the immediate-certification feature of the Tendermint consensus (although it can work with any "fast-certainty" blockchain engine) to allow heterogeneous chains to transfer value (i.e. tokens) or data to each other.
What Are Heterogeneous Chains?
Heterogeneous chains are divided into two, these are:
Various layers: Heterogeneous chains have various layers, that is, they can contrast by they way they carry out the systems administration, agreement, and execution parts .To be viable with IBC, a blockchain just necessities to follow a couple of prerequisites; the most significant of these is the requirement for the agreement layer to have quick exactness. Proof of Work chains (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) do not fall into this category as they have probabilistic certainty.
Autonomy: Each blockchain is secured by a bunch of validators whose work is to agree on the following square to be focused on the blockchain. In Proof of Work blockchains, these validators are called excavators. An independent blockchain is a blockchain with its own set of validators. In many cases, it is important that blockchains are independent, as validators are responsible for changing the situation. In Ethereum, all applications are controlled by a typical arrangement of validators. Therefore, each application has only a limited number of independences. IBC allows heterogeneous blockchains to transfer tokens and data; This means that blockchains with different implementations and validator clusters are interoperable.For instance, it permits public and private blockchains to move tokens to one another. Currently, no other blockchain framework provides this level of interoperability.
How Does IBC Work?
The idea behind IBC's system is quite simple. Consider a model where a record on affix A needs to send 10 tokens (ATOM) to chain B
Follow-up
Constantly, chain B gets the headers of chain An and the other way around. This ensures that each chain follows the other's validator set. In essence, each chain runs the other's client.
Measured quality: The objective of the Cosmos SDK is to fabricate a biological system of modules that permit designers to handily turn application-explicit blockchains without coding each and every usefulness of their applications from scratch. Every client can make a module for the Cosmos SDK, and utilizing blockchain-prepared underlying modules is just about as basic as bringing them into the application. As an example, the Tendermint team is building a set of core modules required for the Cosmos Hub. These modules can be used by any developer when creating their own applications.Moreover, designers can make new modules to modify their applications. As the Cosmos network advances, the biological system of SDK modules will extend, making it progressively simple to foster complex blockchain applications.
Capabilities-Based Security: Capabilities restrict security boundaries between modules, allowing developers to better reason about the composability of modules and limit the scope of malicious or unexpected interactions.
The Cosmos SDK also comes with a set of useful developer tools for building command line interfaces, REST servers, and various other commonly used utility libraries. Also, the Cosmos SDK is designed to be modular, like all Cosmos tools. TToday, it permits engineers to expand on top of Tendermint BFT. Notwithstanding, it can likewise be utilized with some other agreement motors that carry out ABCI.After some time, various SDKs are relied upon to arise, worked with various engineering models and viable with different agreement motors. The area where all of these are delivered together is the Cosmos Network.
ethermint
Quite possibly the main highlights about the Cosmos SDK is that its seclusion permits engineers to move practically any current blockchain codebase accessible in Golang onto the Cosmos SDK. As an example, Ethermint is known as a project that ported the Ethereum virtual machine to the SDK module. Ethermint works exactly like Ethereum but also takes advantage of all the features of Tendermint BFT. All current Ethereum instruments (Truffle, Metamask, and so forth) are Ethermint viable and permit to move keen agreements without extra work.
Why Build a Blockchain with Cosmos SDK when Decentralized Application Can be Embedded Above Virtual Machine Blockchain?
This question becomes important given that most decentralized applications today are developed on virtual machine blockchains such as Ethereum. First, it should be noted that the reason for this phenomenon is that so far the development of blockchains is much more difficult than smart contracts. Thanks to the Cosmos SDK, the situation has changed and has been positively updated. Venture designers can without much of a stretch foster application-explicit blockchains, which enjoy a few benefits. They provide greater flexibility, security, performance and independence, among others. A person who does not want to create their own blockchain can distribute their smart contracts to Ethermint, making them compatible with Cosmos.
Connecting Blockchains - IBC
Now that it's a way for developers to quickly create customized blockchains, here's how to link blockchains together. The association between blockchains is given through a convention called the Inter-Blockchain Communication convention (IBC). IBC leverages the immediate-certification feature of the Tendermint consensus (although it can work with any "fast-certainty" blockchain engine) to allow heterogeneous chains to transfer value (i.e. tokens) or data to each other.
What Are Heterogeneous Chains?
Heterogeneous chains are divided into two, these are:
Various layers: Heterogeneous chains have various layers, that is, they can contrast by they way they carry out the systems administration, agreement, and execution parts .To be viable with IBC, a blockchain just necessities to follow a couple of prerequisites; the most significant of these is the requirement for the agreement layer to have quick exactness. Proof of Work chains (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) do not fall into this category as they have probabilistic certainty.
Autonomy: Each blockchain is secured by a bunch of validators whose work is to agree on the following square to be focused on the blockchain. In Proof of Work blockchains, these validators are called excavators. An independent blockchain is a blockchain with its own set of validators. In many cases, it is important that blockchains are independent, as validators are responsible for changing the situation. In Ethereum, all applications are controlled by a typical arrangement of validators. Therefore, each application has only a limited number of independences. IBC allows heterogeneous blockchains to transfer tokens and data; This means that blockchains with different implementations and validator clusters are interoperable.For instance, it permits public and private blockchains to move tokens to one another. Currently, no other blockchain framework provides this level of interoperability.
How Does IBC Work?
The idea behind IBC's system is quite simple. Consider a model where a record on affix A needs to send 10 tokens (ATOM) to chain B
Follow-up
Constantly, chain B gets the headers of chain An and the other way around. This ensures that each chain follows the other's validator set. In essence, each chain runs the other's client.
Putting together
When the IBC transfer is initiated, the ATOM is locked (attached) in the A chain.
Proof Relay
Then, a proof that 10 ATOMs are connected is transferred from chain A to chain B.
Verification
If the proof is verified in chain B against the title of chain A and is considered valid, 10 ATOM coupons are generated in chain B.
It should be noted that since ATOM exists only in chain A, ATOM created in chain B is not real ATOM. These are a representation of the ATOM in chain A on B and a proof that the ATOMs are frozen in chain A.
A similar mechanism is used to unlock the ATOM when it returns to its starting chains.
Designing the “Internet of Blockchains”
IBC is a convention that permits two heterogeneous blockchains to move tokens to one another.
One of the ideas put forward is to connect each blockchain in the network directly via IBC connections. The main problem with this approach is that the number of connections in the network increases quadratic with the number of blockchains. In case there are 100 blockchains in the organization and every one of them needs to keep an IBC association with one another, that would mean 4950 associations. This speed can get the system out of control. To tackle this, Cosmos proposes a measured design with two blockchain classes: Hubs and Zones.
Zones are heterogeneous blockchains that are viewed as ordinary, while Hubs are blockchains explicitly intended to associate Zones together. When it establishes an IBC connection with a Zone and a Hub, it can automatically access (ie send and receive) all other Zones connected to it. Thus, each Zone just necessitates building up a predetermined number of associations with a set number of Hubs. Hubs also prevent Double Spending between Zones. This implies that when the Zone gets a token from the Hub, it just requirements to trust the underlying Zone of that token and the Hub. The main Hub dispatched on the Cosmos Network is known as the Cosmos Hub. Cosmos Hub is a public Proof of Stake blockchain whose local marking token is called ATOM and exchange charges will be paid in various tokens
Bridging Non-Tendermint Chains
The Cosmos structure demonstrates how Tendermint-based chains can work together. However, Cosmos is not limited to Tendermint chains. Indeed, any kind of blockchain can be associated with Cosmos. At this stage, there are two situations that should be distinguished: Fast precision chains and probabilistic precision chains.
Fast Certainty Chains
Blockchains using any fast-firm consensus algorithm can connect with Cosmos by adapting the IBC. For example, if Ethereum had migrated to Casper FFG (Friendly Finality Gadget), a direct link could be established between it and the Cosmos Ecosystem by adapting IBC to work with Casper.
Probabilistic Certainty Chains
For blockchains that do not have fast accuracy, such as Proof of Work chains, transactions are a bit more complex. A special type of proxy chain called Peg-Zone is used for these chains. Peg-Zone is called a blockchain that monitors the state of another blockchain. The Peg-Zone itself has fast accuracy and is therefore compatible with IBC. Peg-Zone's role is to provide certainty for the blockchain it bridges. To explain with an example:
Example: Ethereum Peg-Zone
It is wanted to connect the Proof of Work Ethereum blockchain to make it conceivable to send tokens among Ethereum and Cosmos.Since Proof of Work Ethereum lacks fast precision, a Stake Zone should be made to go about as an extension between the two. For this, the Peg-Zone must first decide on a certainty threshold for the starting chain. All in all, it can consider a specific square of the beginning chain to be last when 100 squares are added after it. Second, by deploying a contract on the main Ethereum blockchain, when users want to send tokens from Ethereum to Cosmos, they start by sending tokens to that contract. The contract is then posted in the Peg-Zone, which is a representation of these assets by freezing the assets and after 100 blocks. A comparative system is utilized to send resources back to the Ethereum chain.
Peg-Zone also allows users to send any token living in the Cosmos to the Ethereum chain (Cosmos tokens are represented on the Ethereum chain as ERC-20. The Tendermint group is dealing with a Peg-Zone execution for the Ethereum chain named Peggy. Peg-Zone Zones need to be customized for the specific chain they are bridging. Making an Ethereum Peg-Zone is a basic interaction on the grounds that Ethereum is account-based and has keen agreements. However, creating a Bitcoin Peg-Zone can be more challenging than an Ethereum Peg-Zone.
Solving Scalability
Since it has been announced that blockchains can be created easily, another issue that needs to be emphasized is the scalability feature. Cosmos benefits from two types of scalability:
Vertical scalability: It covers the ways to scale the blockchain itself. By moving away from Proof of Work and streamlining its segments, Tendermint BFT can arrive at a huge number of exchanges each second.For instance, an application like a virtual machine (eg, Ethereum virtual machine) forces a much lower cap on exchange throughput than an application in which exchange types and state transition functions are directly embedded (eg, a standard Cosmos SDK implementation). This is one of the reasons application-specific blockchains make sense.
Horizontal scalability: While the consensus engine and implementation are highly optimized, at some point a single chain's throughput inevitably encounters a hurdle that it cannot exceed. This is called the limit of vertical scaling. The solution to go beyond that is to move to multi-chain architectures. All in all, having various equal chains showing a similar application and hurry to a typical arrangement of validators makes blockchains hypothetically limitlessly versatile.
The good vertical scalability that Cosmos offers will in itself be a huge improvement over existing blockchain solutions. Afterward, after the consummation of the IBC module, it will execute even versatility arrangements.
In Conclusion What is Cosmos in Three Short Points?
Cosmos makes blockchains powerful and easy to develop, thanks to the modularity of Tendermint BFT and Cosmos SDK. Cosmos allows blockchains to transfer value with each other through IBC and Peg-Zones while maintaining their autonomy.
Cosmos empowers blockchain applications to scale to a huge number of clients through even and vertical versatility arrangements. After all, Cosmos is not a product but an ecosystem built on a set of modular, adaptable and interchangeable tools. Designers are urged to partake in working on existing instruments and making new ones to make the guarantee of blockchain innovation a reality. These tools are the foundation needed to build the decentralized internet and global financial system of tomorrow.
How Many Cosmos (ATOM) Coins Are In The Market?
ATOM coin has a unique total supply of 260,906,513 units. These cryptocurrencies are earned by staking rather than mining.
Two private sales were made for ATOM in January 2017, followed by another public sale in April of the same year. After these two sales, a price of approximately $0.10 per ATOM coin was established and the total market value reached $16 million. The distribution of the total amount of tokens produced was made by allocating 80 percent to investors and the remaining 20 percent to two companies named All In Bits and Interchain Foundation.
The ATOM tokens of the Cosmos network have been likened to ASIC hardware used for Bitcoin mining.
Is the Cosmos Network Safe?
It is stated in this article that Cosmos uses the Proof of Stake consensus algorithm. Verifying nodes with large amounts of ATOM tokens are more likely to be selected to validate transactions and earn rewards. Nodes that are found not to act in accordance with the rules may be penalized and face the risk of losing their tokens.
How to Buy Cosmos (ATOM)?
For those who want to invest in crypto money, the answer to the question of how to buy and sell Cosmos (ATOM) is often wondered. For this, either mining is done or these transactions need to use a specially created cryptocurrency exchange.