Cosmos Ecosystem Rallies on Market Bounce

Cosmos’ ATOM token is up 40.6% over the past 30 days. 

Cosmos Ecosystem Outperforms Market 

The Cosmos ecosystem is soaring. 

Several tokens affiliated with the “Layer 0” network have rallied Thursday, following a market-wide bounce led by the top two cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

According to CoinGecko data, Cosmos’ ATOM token is up 7.6% over the past 24 hours, extending a rally that’s seen it rise 40.6% in 30 days. It’s currently trading at $12.72. Evmos, a bridge project that leverages Cosmos’ Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol to connect the ecosystem to Ethereum, is up 21.1%, currently trading at $2.80. Other Cosmos projects like Osmosis and JUNO have put in modest gains of 3.8% and 3.5%, though they’ve risen further than many other major assets over the past 24 hours. 

Though there’s no clear reason behind the ecosystem’s surge, ATOM’s weeks-long rise amid improvements in market sentiment is likely a big factor. Whenever a blockchain network’s native token gains the market’s attention with a rally, other projects within the same ecosystem tend to benefit. As base layer blockchains typically have the most value in a given ecosystem, they tend to be less volatile. As a result, projects with lower market capitalizations can often outperform if interest in the ecosystem grows (by contrast, smaller tokens tend to bleed harder when the trend reverses).

“The Internet of Blockchains” in 2021

Cosmos markets itself as “the Internet of Blockchains,” acting as a connecting hub for multiple separate blockchain networks. That’s why it’s known as a “Layer 0” akin to Polkadot, rather than Layer 1 networks like Ethereum and Solana that act as base chains for applications to build on. Cosmos differentiates itself from other similar projects by adopting a shared security model that helps bootstrap new blockchains and allows them to interact with one another within one ecosystem.

Though Cosmos has been in development for several years and saw some upside with many other key projects in the 2021 bull run, it lagged behind many Layer 1 projects that benefited from growing interest in NFTs and yield farming. ATOM peaked at $44.45 in January 2022, but it failed to capture the crypto community’s mindshare in the same way that the likes of Solana, Avalanche, and the now-collapsed Terra did. Even after today’s rally, it still has a long way to go to return to its peak. At $12.72, it’s about 71.3% short of its all-time high.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ATOM, ETH, and several other cryptocurrencies.