On Monday, a document released by a group of Cosmos contributors, revealed that the Cosmos network will soon enable interchain security. This is an optional feature allowing certain application-specific chains on Cosmos to secure themselves by using the same security validators that run Cosmos Hub — the central blockchain of the Cosmos network.
Per Cosmos contributors, interchain security will go live between August and September.
Cosmos — an ecosystem of more than 200 blockchains — lets developers build new application-specific chains if they can manage their own validators. But, building a validator set from scratch consumes a lot of time and resources. This is where interchain security comes in.
Rather than setting up independent validators, the feature will make it possible for new Cosmos-enabled blockchains to rely on Cosmos Hub’s security validators. It also means these blockchains will send fees to those validators, providing further rewards to ATOM stakers.
By launching interchain security, Cosmos will emulate the design of another interoperability network: Polkadot. On Polkadot, all application-specific chains share their validator security with the central relay chain by default.
“Launching on the Cosmos Hub August/September 2022, Interchain Security will emerge as the premier method for projects to get the highest level of security in Cosmos by leveraging the entire 175+ Cosmos Hub validator set,” Cosmos contributors stated. They added that interchain security could be vital to onboard projects from outside Cosmos that are interested to launch on Cosmos as their own blockchain.
Cosmos contributors have proposed spending 150,000 ATOM tokens ($1.1 million) from the official Cosmos Hub community pool to attract projects that use interchain security.
The interchain security feature is planned at a time when Ethereum-based projects like decentralized exchanges dYdX and Paraswap have shown interest in expanding to Cosmos as independent application-specific chains.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
About Author
Vishal Chawla is a reporter who has covered the ins and outs of the tech industry for more than half a decade. Prior to joining The Block, Vishal worked for media firms like Crypto Briefing, IDG ComputerWorld and CIO.com.
Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/154482/cosmos-hub-set-to-introduce-interchain-security-within-three-months?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss