Cosmos Ecosystem: A super multiverse-converged Ecosystem

In this article, we will deep dive into Cosmos ecosystem, including:

• The current situation and Cosmos accomplishments.
• An overview of the Cosmos' ecosystem.
• Analysis of each sector in the Cosmos ecosystem.
• Prediction and investment opportunities.

Let's get started! 

Cosmos Network Overview

What is Cosmos? 

Cosmos is an ecosystem of blockchains that can scale and interoperate with each other in a decentralized way. Before Cosmos, blockchains were separate and unable to communicate with each other. 

Cosmos solves these problems with a set of open source tools such as Tendermint, the Cosmos SDK and IBC which are designed to let developers build blockchain applications quickly.

Cosmos network consists of many independent, parallel blockchains, called Zones. Some Zones act as Hubs with respect to other Zones, allowing many zones to interoperate through a shared Hub. 

By creating a new zone, you can plug any blockchain system into the Cosmos hub and pass tokens back and forth between those Zones, without the need for an intermediary

Cosmos Highlights

The set of open source tools including Tendermint BFT, Cosmos SDK and IBC has really empowered the Cosmos Ecosystem. Together the tools have proved their abilities to solve limitations of Scalability, Usability and Sovereignty.

• Tendermint BFT (Scalability): Tendermint BFT handles networking and consensus layers of a blockchain and leaves the application layer for developers. Developers can therefore build both public and private blockchains on top of the Tendermint BFT engine and freely customize their own blockchains. Tendermint BFT also allows high performance and instant finality 
• Cosmos SDK (Usability): Cosmos SDK simplifies the process of building blockchain applications. Developers can create application-specific blockchains without having to code every single line from scratch and use ready-built modules as well as import them into their applications.
• IBC & Peg-Zones (Sovereignty): IBC & Peg-Zones allows public and private blockchains to transfer tokens and data to each other, meaning that blockchains with different applications and validator sets are interoperable. 

→ Cosmos allows blockchain applications to scale to millions of users through horizontal and vertical scalability solutions.

The importance of IBC on Cosmos 

IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication) is the main significant feature of Cosmos. Unless IBC is present, Cosmos doesn't have many interesting things to talk about. IBC can be viewed as a trade route connecting dozens of ecosystems in the whole Cosmos universe.

Let's take an example: All of us are aware that UST is a well-known stablecoin within the Terra blockchain (one of the zones in the Cosmos Ecosystem). It is, however, limited to one chain if the UST is located in Terra only. But by connecting Terra to IBC, UST can travel back and forth between the Cosmos Network's 18 chains (which are also connected to IBC), and users can use it in various DeFi applications, thereby increasing the UST coverage across different ecosystems.

In contrast, if there is no IBC, Terra must construct 18 separate bridges, each connected to a corresponding chain, to assist UST in moving between chains. Of course, this will be difficult and time-consuming to implement.

That is why people say that IBC brings the spring season to Cosmos!

Cosmos Highlighted Numbers

Updated March 18, 2022

• $141.8B: Total Market Share of the entire Cosmos Ecosystem
• $70B: Total Market Share of all IBC-enabled chains on Cosmos
• 263: The total number of blockchains and dApps on Cosmos.
• $1.65B : TVL on Osmosis - The first and most noticed cross-chain AMM on Cosmos Hub.

ATOM Token:

• Marketcap: $8B.
• Rank: 20.
• ATH Price: $44.4 (17/1/2022).
• ATL Price: $0.12 (13/03/2020).
• Circulating Supply: 290,611,429 ATOM

Investors 

The two-week initial coin offering (ICO) of the ATOM token was in 2017, and the project successfully raised over $17 million. Tendermint Inc. raised $9 million to continue the development of the project through a Series A funding round in 2019.

SNX Holdings, Dragonfly Capital Partners, KR1, Cyber Fund, Interchain, Tendermint, Tendermint Ventures, Chorus One, Figment, P2P Validator, Citadel, and others were among the early investors.

These investors are almost long-established ventures in the market as Cosmos was also an early-generation blockchain at that time.

Besides investing in Cosmos itself, we can also see many reputable venture capitalists who invest in different blockchains in the Cosmos Ecosystem as the following: 

• Multicoin: THORchain, Kadena.
• Paradigm: Cosmos, Osmosis.
• Hashed: Terra, Cosmos, Vega, Injective, Secret Network.
• Delphi: Terra, THORchain.
• Coinbase: Terra, Vega, Umee.
• Spartan: Secret, Band, Persistence, Pstake, Persistence.
• Binance Labs: Celer, Terra, Kava.
• Framework: Kava.
• Alameda: Siftchain, Umee, Persistence, PStake.
• Polychain: Umee.

Roadmap & Current Situation 

• March 2021: Launched the Cosmos Hub and the Tendermint Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network.
• March 2021: IBC Transfers enabled, 100% roadmap completed after a 4-year construction Cosmos
• April 2021: Introduced Gravity DEX-a cross-chain AMM 
• May 2021: Gravity Bridge, a bridge that will connect the Cosmos-Ethereum ecosystem, was introduced.
• July 2021: Cosmos Roadmap 2.0 was released. 

2021 is likely to be a memorable year for Cosmos because it marks the end of the ecosystem's basic infrastructure construction. After completing IBC Transfers, Cosmos quickly overtook Polkadot in both speed and level, from completing the 4-year roadmap to launching the 2.0 roadmap very quickly.

The following sections of the Cosmos 2.0 Roadmap will remain:

H1 2022: 

• Interchain Account Module.
• Cosmos SDK: Groups module, Meta-Transactions, NFT module.
• Liquid Staking.

H2 2022:

• Interchain Security v1 & Chain Name Service.
• Interchain Security v2.
• Cosmos SDK: Sparse Merkle Tree.
• IBC queries.

Since its inception, Cosmos IBC has been linked to over 40 active zones, including Osmosis, Cronos, Secret Network, and others. As a result, the Blockchain Internet has begun, making it easier to connect and move assets across the entire network.

Allow me to take you on a journey through Cosmos' ecosystem to fully understand why it will be the leader among ecosystems that pursue the concept of the Internet of Blockchain!

The Cosmos Ecosystem

At the moment, the Cosmos ecosystem is becoming increasingly vibrant. That accomplishment stems from the team's never-ending efforts to improve the infrastructure that allows the zones in Cosmos to communicate, thereby converting values back and forth.

This rapid development distinguishes it from its competitors' chains, which also are based on the "Internet of Blockchain" concept. Cosmos focuses on developing their zones (an ecosystem blockchains) first, and then building bridges to connect them together. While in Polkadot Ecosystem or Avalanche Ecosystem, they focus on building the main chain and, after that, build an ecosystem around that main chain.

Because of the two different approaches, at the moment, we can clearly see that Polkadot is lagging behind Cosmos because it is still in the auction stage, as well as the first parachains like Moonbeam, Acala, and Astar are just over two months old from the mainnet launch (still quite young).

As a result, for the time being, we can consider Cosmos to be the race leader.

Cosmos Hub ($ATOM)

The Cosmos Hub is a network constructed by the Cosmos team. Cosmos Hub has a critical role because it serves as the hub for connecting blockchains in the ecosystem via the IBC bridge. 

During the four years of IBC development, almost nothing was on Cosmos Hub except the ATOM tokens, however when the IBC bridge was completed in March 2021, ATOM and Cosmos Hub opened up a new phase. Cosmos Hub will be the hub that connects blockchains, making chain interaction and communication safe, secure, and fast.

The IBC-enabled Ecosystems

Imagine a universe in which all the major planets in the ecosystem can communicate , interact, and exchange resources with each other in order to build a superuniverse. As more planets join the IBC universe, it will become more robust in its overall design and composition.

More than 40 planets in the Cosmos ecosystem are now connected to IBC, including well-known and powerful lands like Terra and Cronos.

Let's travel to each of the planets in the IBC universe together!

Osmosis ($OSMO)

The Cosmos Hub's first AMM is Osmosis. Osmosis is a cross-chain DEX protocol that also serves as a hub for other chains on Cosmos. Its TVL has increased dramatically in a short period of time, from 57 million TVL when it first launched in July 2021 to more than 1.7 billion TVL today, ranking 11th in the entire market despite being only a DEX.

Despite the fact that the market was quite bleak in early 2022, when the vast majority of money flows were withdrawn from ecosystems such as BNB Chain or Polygon, Osmosis retained its TVL very well. 

The vibrancy of Osmosis is also reflected in the volume of transactions, which reached $820 million last week. Because it is the largest liquidity hub for trades, Osmosis has proven to be the most powerful player in the Cosmos ecosystem.

According to Token Terminal's data, OSMO's token transaction volume is very intense, indicating that the token's transaction volume reflects some of the community's interest in a specific project. Here, we can see that $UNI is a long-standing and well-known name in the market, with a daily volume of $123M, while OSMO isn't far behind with a daily trading volume of nearly $100M.

This is partly because when the market talks about Cosmos, the two tokens, $ATOM and $OSMO, will be the first two names mentioned. People who stake these two tokens have the opportunity to receive airdrops from new projects in this ecosystem.

This tactic is very clever when it comes to the psychological effect known as "free lunch." The more projects that airdrop ATOM/OSMO stakers, the more demand there is for those tokens. OSMO token transactions have recently increased in volume as a result. 

Osmosis has already completed half of its journey, having passed such memorable monuments such as: 

• CosmWasm (Done).
• Superfluid Staking (Done).

In the future, three other core functions are expected in this DEX:

• LPB 2.0 (Soon).
• Ethereum Integration (Soon).
• Stable Swap (Soon).

Isn't that exciting? As the largest DEX in Cosmos' ecosystem, let us keep an eye on what happens next with Osmosis.

Gravity Bridge Chain ($GRAV)

The Gravity Bridge connects Ethereum and Cosmos. Creating a bridge between these two networks will allow Cosmos to gain access to a large amount of funds within the Ethereum ecosystem, as real whales are hiding on the Ethereum Chain.

The bridge's opening is compared to the opening of a trade route since it will connect developing countries (such as Cosmos) to other developed countries (such as Ethereum), from which developing countries can obtain the FDI inflows into their territories. As most other layer 1 blockchains construct bridges to connect to Ethereum, we will all witness similar scenarios.

Take a look back at the Gravity bridge. It will run on the Gravity chain and use Interchain Staking to lease security from the Cosmos Hub. The advantage of this option is that Gravity Bridge will be able to maintain its independent status while the function of Interchain Staking ensures that the Gravity Bridge Chain remains safe as it is secured from Cosmos Hub validators, so all control over the bridge is handled entirely by the Gravity Bridge validator set.

Gravity Bridge Chain will also have its own token, Graviton (GRAV, the bridge's native token), which has already successfully distributed initial airdrops to ATOM stakeholders and the OSMO community pool.

Proposals to support as many assets as possible are ongoing, and already the Cosmos Gravity Bridge has some awesome project integrations, including: ATOM, HUAHUA, NYM, PERSISTENCE, STARS, COMDEX.

The journey of Gravity Bridge Chain continues with many plans ahead:

• Initial seed airdrop: Completed.
• Beta NFT support: Completed.
• Initial Gravity Grants proposals: Early March 2022.
• Formation of Gravity Growth: Early March 2022.
• Mercury Update March 2022.
• Liquidity Mining Rewards on other DEXs (TBA).
• Additional EVM chain integration (TBA).

As more stablecoin and liquidity enter Cosmos' ecosystem, DeFi will be fueled further. Decentralized applications and DeFi can thrive in the Cosmos ecosystem thanks to Gravity Bridge's interoperability and new sources of liquidity. Coin98 Insights will keep you up to date on the latest developments in this Chain.

Terra ($LUNA)

Of course, any discussion of the Cosmos would be incomplete without bringing up Terra. It's one of the blockchains that's helped build up Cosmos' image and reputation.

Terra began as an independent blockchain built on top of the Cosmos SDK. Since Cosmos completed IBC, Terra's entry into the IBC ecosystem has elevated the Cosmos multiverse to a new level.
Terra is currently connected to 42 other chains and dApps in Cosmos via IBC.

Since TVL increased from $53 million to $26 billion in 2021, Terra is one of the names that generated a lot of buzz. Because of this, Terra has grown to be the second-most powerful super planet in the market, behind only Ethereum.

Terra even surpassed the BNB Chain, which was a shining face in the spring of 2021. And now Terra's TVL has more than doubled that of BNB Chain ($12B TVL).

UST market share increased more than 65 times, from $181M to $15B. As a result, if the price at the start of the year is compared to the ATH of $103, the price of LUNA has increased by more than 17,000%. 

The presence of UST in the Cosmos ecosystem will also serve as a foundation for UST's coverage throughout the Cosmos universe, helping to increase use cases for UST and thereby increase the price of LUNA coin. This will have a strong resonance, resulting in massive network effects for both Terra and the Cosmos universe as a whole.

Furthermore, the number of ecosystem projects has risen to more than 100, not including NFT, gaming, and metaverse projects. Please read the Terra Ecosystem Digest article here for more information about the Terra ecosystem and to find more opportunities in Terra!

Learn more: Terra Ecosystem Overview

Cronos ($CRO)

Cronos, in general, is a blockchain that runs simultaneously with the Crypto.org Chain. This is comparable to the relationship between Binance Smart Chain and Binance Chain.

Despite being a newcomer to the market, Cronos has demonstrated its competitiveness by having $3.24B in TVL in the ecosystem, ranking 9th in the entire market.

To learn more about Cronos, you should be familiar with the Crypto.com exchange, which is consistently ranked among the top ten exchanges in terms of 24 hour trading volume. Since its inception in 2016, Crypto.com has grown to over 10 million users and 3,000 employees.

Most importantly, in 2021, Crypto.com is one of the few exchanges willing to spend large sums of money on promoting and collaborating with well-known names such as the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, the Formula One racing tournament, and the UFC fighting tournament, among others.

With the help of Crypto.com Exchange, the Cronos ecosystem has grown rapidly, despite only being on the mainnet for four months. For a blockchain that is only a few months old, a TVL of $3.24 billion is unimaginable. 

In addition, Cronos has established a grant (the CRO EVM Fund) with a total value up to $100 million to support ecosystem projects as part of its commitment to building an ecosystem.

We can see that the development of Cronos not only brings value to the ecosystem itself, but also brings value to the Cosmos in general. While it is good news for Cronos to have joined the IBC universe, it also makes it easier for Cronos to interact with other chains within the Cosmos ecosystem. Cronos is currently linked to four main chains: Crypto.org, Terra, Cosmos Hub, and Juno Network.

For a deep dive into Cronos Ecosystem, please check out the Cronos Ecosystem Digest article here to learn more. 

Learn more: Cronos Ecosystem Overview

Secret Network ($SCRT)

The Secret Network is a blockchain dedicated to protecting user data and personal information in the crypto world.

It's worth noting that the Secret network takes a unique approach to development. Rather than developing its own privacy ecosystem, Secret Network has made this service available to other blockchains.

Ethereum, Polkadot, BSC, Terra, and Monero are just a few of the major blockchains that the project has completed five bridges with in H1/2021 The team has put in a lot of work over the years to build these bridges.

It's only natural that Secret Network would offer its services in Cosmos' Zones. As of right now, Secret Network is a member of the IBC and is able to connect with 14 different chains. 

It is also worth noting that the venture has a strong interest in privacy, as evidenced by their investment of up to $400 million USD in Secret Network. Many big names attended this investment event, including Alameda Research, Arrington Capital, CoinFund, and DeFiance Capital.

As we move closer to widespread adoption of blockchain, privacy becomes increasingly important. Businesses, whales, and even governments will all have transactions that must be kept confidential. Private alternatives to BTC include coins such as Monero. Secret is attempting to do the same thing, but with ETH's smart contracts.

Injective ($INJ)

Injective is a cross-chain protocol for financial applications built on top of the Injective Chain. There are numerous applications on this chain, one of which is Injective's exchange, which serves as a trading platform for a variety of financial products such as spot, derivatives, and so on.

Injective has more than $120 million in TVL. This is an advanced DeFi Hub that already connects to numerous other dApps and chains, including Acala, BNB Chain, Aurora, Avalanche, Alpha Finance Labs.

Injective's plan also includes "going multichain," which means that the more it appears in multiple ecosystems, the better it will be for Injective. Currently, $INJ can be found on MDEX, Moonbeam, Acala, Mirror, Persistence, and other exchanges.

Injective currently has six main products that will cater to the needs of various users. Injective Pro, an underlying and derivatives exchange that currently supports 14 asset pairs, is the most well-known.

Kava ($KAVA)

Kava is a blockchain built in the Cosmos ecosystem using the Cosmos SDK. Initially, Kava was just a project focused on the lending sector with Stablecoin USDX, which was backed by popular crypto assets such as BTC, ATOM, XRP, BNB,...

However, Kava quickly expanded its ecosystem, first developing Kava Lend and then constructing Kavaswap.

The Kava Ecosystem's total TVL is currently $594M. A remarkable figure for a DeFi platform with only three main products: Kava Platform, Kava Lend, and Kava Swap.

This is also linked to the event in Q3 2021, when Kava announced the launch of the Kava Ecosystem Fund phase 1 worth $185 million to support projects in the ecosystem. Since then, the Kava ecosystem has experienced a number of significant growths.

Kava is currently linked to Osmosis, Terra, Cosmos, Sif Chain, and Akash Network via IBC.

Persistence ($XPRT)

Persistence is a Cosmos-based Layer-1 network powering an ecosystem of DeFi products aimed at making liquid staked assets the default assets of the PoS economy.

Persistence currently has the following main products:

• pStake: Over 5,100 stakers have staked around $49 million in assets on pStake.
• Audit.One: AUDIT.one is Persistence's infrastructure arm, and it has become a reputation validator in South Asia, with nodes running on more than 20 networks including Cosmos, Polygon, Solana, Elrond, Terra, and many others. AUDIT.one currently has over $300 million in assets under delegation.
• Other products: AssetMantle (NFT Marketplace), Comdex (Synthetic Assets), Stakedrop (Token distribution mechanism) and InterNFT (Interchain Standards for Non-Fungible Tokens and Metadata)

Persistence is a very active chain in the Cosmos ecosystem which is now ranked 12th compared to all chains in Cosmos.  It is currently connected to more than 40 chains and dApps via IBC.

THORChain ($JUNE) 

Thorchain is a Cross-chain DEX that allows people to trade one digital asset on one chain to another digital asset on another chain in a frictionless, decentralized, trust-minimized way.

H1/2221 was an excellent year for Thorswap-Cross-chain DEX development. Thorswap allows users to swap BTC native, ETH native, LTC native, etc. on the same platform, which no other DEX can do.

Thorswap's success is depicted in the picture above. When the market is less active from December to Q1 2022, TVL and trading volume on Thorswap continue to rise sharply.

• TVL has surpassed the $310 million mark.
• The daily trading volume reached $53 million. 

With the completion of Thorswap, Thorchain has expanded into an ecosystem. Some of the products that have been and are being developed on THORChain include:

• AMM: THORSwap, SKIP Exchange, BEPSwap, ASGARDEX, Defi Spot.
• IDO Platform: THORSTARTER.
• Wallet: THORWallet.
• Cross-chain Name Service: ThorName.
• Yield Farming: Skyrim Finance (IDO trên THORSTARTER).
• Synthetic: Brokkr Finance, ThorSynth.
• Aggregator: Rango Exchange.

Not to mention, there are many people who are enthusiastic about THORSwap products. Aside from that, $RUNE's backers include two of the industry's most respected names such as Delphi Digital and Multicon Capital.

Other Names 

• Juno Network : Juno Network is a smart contract platform in the Cosmos ecosystem. Juno is the home of CosmWasm smart contracts.
• Akash Network: Akash Network is a distributed Peer-to-peer Marketplace for Cloud Compute 
• Sifchain: Sifchain is the omni-chain solution for DEXs. Currently Sifchain has nearly $30M in TVL with one product being the DEX. 

• Althea Network: Althea is America's internet service provider. Founded in 2017, Althea enables growth in the network through a unique system of revenue sharing.  
• Tgrade: Tgrade is a decentralized, robust blockchain, that by nature is public. Tgrade  offers the ability for self-sovereign groups to form and interact with each other. Tgrade is one of the candidates which is supported directly by Tendermint, the team behind Cosmos. 

Notable Cosmos SDK-based ecosystems

BNB Chain

The BNB Chain is also a Cosmos SDK-based chain. BNB Chain is, in essence, completely independent of Cosmos. However, as an aside, it should be noted that Cosmos is the place where many of the well-known ecosystems were born in the market.

BNB Chain was a gleaming ecosystem in H1 2021, when Ethereum was starting to congeal and gas fees were skyrocketing. Many users chose BNB Chain as an alternative solution at the time. However, this ecosystem has recently reached saturation, resulting in a significant drop in total value locked. So far, there has been no indication of a return of cash flow.

For more details about BNB Chain, let's take a look back at BNB Chain's journey in 2021: Binance Smart Chain 2021 Year In Review Report

Evmos - EVM Compatible Hub

Evmos is a next-gen EVM-compatible hub in Cosmos. Evmos has an environment that is compatible with the EVM and other BFT chains through IBC. This means that developers can use Solidity smart contracts to run on Evmos without modifying their code significantly.

The mainnet launch of this project had been scheduled for March 8, but was forced to be postponed due to technical issues. Fortunately, no harm was done because it happened before the mainnet, but the community was still disappointed.

Let us wait for EVMOS's official launch date! In the analysis below, I will go over the potential and importance of EVMOS in the Cosmos ecosystem in greater detail.

Oasis Network ($ROSE)

The Oasis Network is a privacy-enabled blockchain platform for open finance and a responsible data economy.

Despite having been on mainnet for only a short period of time, Oasis has piqued the community's interest and begun to develop its ecosystem rapidly. 

• At the end of November 2021, an ecosystem fund with a total value of $160 million was established.
• The integration of ROSE, the native token of Oasis Network, into Wormhole allows users to transfer tokens between supported networks.
• Partnering with prominent DeFi & NFT projects in the market like Thetanuts & NFTb to prepare for next steps of the ecosystem.

TVL in the Oasis ecosystem as a whole has increased dramatically in recent days, rising from $70 million to more than $200 million. dApps within the system are also becoming more ubiquitous.

Furthermore, Oasis Network is backed by a number of major market VCs, including a16z, Pantera, Polychain Capital, and others. These are venture capitalists who have invested in a large number of layer 1 blockchains and have a very high investment success rate. The VCs on this list will be invaluable to the long-term development of the Oasis ecosystem because of their experience investing in Layer 1 projects.

Umee Protocol ($UMEE)

Umee is a layer 1 blockchain built on top of Cosmos. It is a cross-chain DeFi hub that interconnects between blockchains.

As a Cosmos SDK blockchain, the Umee Network is interoperable with blockchains including Terra, Crypto.com, Binance Chain, Osmosis, Secret Network, and 30+ other chains, plus Ethereum, from Day 1.

Besides Tendermint, Umee is also supported by Polychain Capital, Coinbase Ventures, CMS, and Alameda Research, among other top-tier investors

Featured as a DeFi Hub on Cosmos, you can lend, borrow, stake, and vote on Umee. For more information about the Umee protocol, please read this article. 

Cosmos Ecosystem Prediction

Projects in the Cosmos ecosystem are making significant efforts to develop even during bull or bear markets, which is a very positive development. Within four years of its inception, Cosmos will have accomplished everything it set out to do.

The Internet of Blockchains on Cosmos enters a promising new era with this development. In 2022, small ecosystems across the universe will begin to connect and exchange data via IBC, which is expected to be a turning point for Cosmos.

Cosmos currently has the fifth-highest number of active developers in the market. The achievement of Cosmos today is the result of unwavering efforts to create a Cosmos multiverse like today.

Here are some Cosmos-related predictions to keep an eye on in the near future.

IBC

Aside from the increased number of IBC-enabled blockchains, IBC usage is also increasing significantly. DEXs, which include Osmosis, Sifchain, Juno, Umee, and others, are the application layer that uses IBC the most.

The more projects connected to IBC, the stronger the cross-chain ecosystem on Cosmos will be, and the more value will be accrued to ATOM. This is also a factor you should pay attention to.

In addition to IBC, other individual bridges connecting external ecosystems to the Cosmos Network will also help attract capital flows to move through Cosmos in search of investment opportunities, such as Ethereum (Gravity Bridge), Polkadot (Octopus Network), Celo (Chorus One), Hyperledger, and Harmony (Datachain).

Interchain Security

Shared security service allows Cosmos chains to effectively lease security to each other so that new chains can bootstrap their economies and validators and delegators on larger chains can earn rewards for the service. Shared Security is not a new concept as we already see this concept appeared on Polkadot. 

However, Cosmos' approach differs in that it intends to use an opt-in model, in which zones can choose whether or not to participate. Participating Cosmos Zones can benefit from Cosmos Hub's security features while remaining sovereign. At a high level, Interchain Security will enable validators and delegators to earn rewards on multiple chains in multiple tokens simply by staking ATOM on the Hub.

New chains will benefit from a robust validator security set and will receive tokens in the early stages. Simultaneously, Cosmos Hub stakeholders gain early access to innovative projects and increased utility for their ATOM.

The Explosion of Evmos

Evmos is now gradually becoming a dedicated application-agnostic chain for integration with the Ethereum mainnet, or in other words, a gateway to approach closely to the Ethereum ecosystem. Ethereum has a plethora of talented developers, and all chains are competing for the attention of these developers, so it's important to keep EVM in mind before embarking on the multiverse journey.

That's why Evmos is so important. There will be an EVM Zone surrounding the Evmos Chain. As a result, an EVM ecosystem that is both competitive and complementary will be created.

The Avalanche C-Chain is a good example of Evmos. Although Avalanche initially focused on developing the C-Chain, an EVM-compatible chain, it has been very successful in attracting money into the ecosystem, helping Avalanche climb to fourth place in the overall market. It is possible to say that the cash flow from EVM chain users is enormous.

The free flow of assets between these major blockchains will create vast opportunities for scalability and growth. As a result, activity in this ecosystem is becoming more vibrant, thus increasing the number of fees generated and the accruing value of ATOM.

Interchain Accounts

This feature will allow the ecosystem chains to securely control accounts on other chains, so one chain could execute transactions on another (staking, voting, etc) through just one interface.

Interchain Accounts will also make it easier for developers to connect to IBC because new chains can leverage the functionalities and capabilities of existing accounts rather than having to recreate these functionalities from scratch.

As a result, this feature enabled the Cosmos universe to advance to the next level, where each chain can easily interact, control, and communicate with others.

Testnet

Many new items will appear within Cosmos in 2022. Among them are:

• Archway: An incentivized smart contract platform providing full CosmWasm integration. 
• Celestia: Modular blockchain network.
• Tgrade: Regulated DeFi platform.
• Umee: Decentralized infrastructure for all types of cross-chain interactions.
• Pylons: Flagship NFT Platform providing a fully functional SDK.

Do you notice anything? Many exciting things are in store for the year 2022!

To summarize, the TVL of most chains in the Cosmos system has increased in recent times. The Cosmos eco have been gaining a lot of traction from the community despite the market sentiment being quite gloomy. This is a very positive signal because many Eyes are on and exploring investment opportunities in this ecosystem.

Investment Opportunities within Cosmos Ecosystem 

Token Investment

1. Cosmos Hub ($ATOM)

As can be seen, the majority of the focus on Cosmos is on Cosmos Hub and its native token, ATOM. ATOM is unquestionably the token that benefits from cross-chain development on the Cosmos Hub.

However, the investment opportunities from the increase in the price of ATOM tokens will be limited because ATOM has previously been x20+ times. Those who arrive first and purchase early will undoubtedly be in a much better position than those who purchase new.

To avoid losses, investing in ATOM tokens requires careful calculation and capital allocation.

For ATOM holders, this is a great opportunity for ATOM holders because the ATOM ecosystem will grow even stronger next year with the introduction of many different blockchains.

Furthermore, the features that the Cosmos team is developing, such as Interchain Security, Interchain Accounts, and Liquid Staking, will contribute to increasing the accumulated value of ATOM because the demand for ATOM to act as validators for in-chain transactions will continue to grow.

2. Osmosis ($OSMO)

The second project that will benefit is Osmosis, as the majority of the token pairs from the new chains will appear there. However, in my opinion, Osmosis' FDV has now surpassed that of UNI, so the investment opportunity in Osmosis will only be possible by providing liquidity with a high APY.

3. Invest in Other Zones within the Cosmos Ecosystem

Persistence (XPRT), Secret Network (SCRT), Thorchain (RUNE), Evmos, and Cronos (CRO) are just a few of the blockchains poised for growth in 2021 and 2022, as we've already seen. Prior to making a decision, you should, however, DYOR because every option comes with its own set of risks.

Skin in the game & Retroactive Opportunities

The opportunity to skin in the game in the Cosmos ecosystem includes the following ways:

• Airdrop: Because nearly all blockchains on Cosmos use the PoS model, all tokens on blockchains can be staked. You can stake ATOM and OSMO with validators and will have a chance to receive airdrops from projects developed within the system. Many ATOM owners have made a lot of money simply by holding and staking ATOM or OSMO
• Early Adopters: Of course, as more products are built on the Zones, you may be able to benefit retroactively from being early adopters/users or having skin in the game by participating in testnet and providing feedback to projects. I believe your efforts will be rewarded if you truly contribute to the project's development.

Make sure you don't miss out on the slew of airdrops scheduled for 2022. Some of the most innovative projects in the Cosmos ecosystem, ranging from NFTs to decentralized social media, DeFi to gaming, will go into production next year.

Keep an eye out for Evmos, Umee, Gravity Bridge, LikeCoin, Game, Stargaze, BitSong, and Cyber airdrops, and remember to stake your ATOM with Cosmos validators to be eligible.

Learn more: Airdrop Retroactive - The best returns with minimal investment

NFT 

As this Cosmos sector is still in its infancy, it's a good idea to keep an eye out for it. Projects like Pylons, BitSong and Omniflix are included in this year's list. Builders of the NFT array are beginning to appear.

On a simpler level, once the infrastructure array is completed, many collectibles will begin to appear in small zones very soon. Building NFT collectibles will be much easier than building a project, so you should also evaluate which NFT projects have real use cases and which are just copy-paste projects from other well-known NFTs such as Bored Apes, Punks, and so on.

Conclusion

Here are a few of my quick summaries:

• Cosmos is an ecosystem that has been gaining a lot of traction in early 2022.
• Cosmos' basic infrastructure has been completed, laying the groundwork for more advanced developments in the ecosystem, such as Interchain Security, Interchain Accounts, Liquid Staking, and so on, to further elevate Cosmos and accumulate value for the ATOM token.
• In the future, Cosmos will be a universe containing hundreds, if not millions, of chains and dApps.
• There are numerous opportunities to receive airdrops from new chains such as Evmos, Umee, Gravity Bridge, and others. It should be noted that only ATOM/OSMO stakers are eligible for airdrops in the ecosystem. Opportunities for retroactive or testnet for new projects abound as well.

What are your thoughts on the Cosmos ecosystem? Please leave a comment below to further discuss with Coin98 Insights!