The Interchain Foundation, a Swiss non-profit foundation supporting research and development for secure and scalable open-source software, has launched Cosmos Network, a decentralized network of independent, scalable and interoperable blockchains. The Foundation views the Cosmos Network as the next step in the evolution of blockchain development, dovetailing and building on Game of Stakes. The new Network is led by Tendermint, who minutes ago posted exciting news about a $9M Series A investment round led by Paradigm.
“The launch of the Cosmos Network is the first major milestone in the development of this network and represents the culmination of 40 years of computer science research, with a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism being deployed live for the first time,” noted Tendermint Founder & CEO and The Interchain Foundation President Jae Kwon. “Now we’re encouraging developers to develop applications that take full advantage of the promises of this powerful ecosystem.”
Tendermint, Inc., the blockchain consensus project behind Tendermint Core, posted that its successful Series A backers include the prominent USD$400 million blockchain fund Paradigm, Bain Capital and 1confirmation. The Cosmos Network is also built on Tendermint Core, a solution that packages the networking and consensus layers of a blockchain together, allowing developers to focus on application development as opposed to the complex underlying protocol.
“We are excited to support Cosmos’s vision for an ecosystem of interoperable blockchains. The team, led by Jae Kwon, has shown years of dedication and a keen understanding for trade-offs in decentralized system design,” shared Paradigm Founders Matt Huang and Charlie Noyes. “We are particularly excited with the team’s progress in building the first production-ready Proof of Stake BFT system, and we look forward to seeing what new decentralized applications that enables.”
The engine leverages a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm created in 2014 by Tendermint Inc.’s Founder and CEO Jae Kwon. This mechanism aims to solve the scalability, security and efficiency limitations experienced by Proof of Work, the type of mining mechanism employed by many existing blockchain ecosystems, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
“Blockchain technology is an incredible innovation that has unfortunately been hamstrung by a series of limitations, including scalability problems, a lack of usability and myriad governance and environmental issues,” added Kwon. “The vision of Cosmos is to overcome these limitations and break down barriers to innovation, ultimately creating an Internet of Blockchains: a decentralized network of independent, scalable, and interoperable blockchains.”
Developers may use the Cosmos Software Development Kit (SDK) to build applications on the Cosmos Network. According to the Network, application-specific blockchains that are built using the Cosmos SDK will have the functionality of interoperability, aiming to end the current siloed nature of blockchains. By enabling blockchains to transact with one another, the Cosmos Network hopes to create an ecosystem in which blockchains can maintain sovereignty, process transactions quickly, communicate and have fast finality (“bringing finality from hours and minutes to seconds”), making the Network ideal for a number of use cases, including financial, gaming, and social networking applications. The Cosmos Hub is the first hub among many hubs that the platform will launch within the Cosmos Network of sovereign blockchains.
In addition to Tendermint, the Cosmos Network has partnered with Binance, the gaming platform Loom, Interledger solutions provider Kava, and news validation social media platform TruStory. The Tendermint Core engine, which powers the Cosmos Hub, is connected to applications by a proprietary application interface that is universally compatible with other programming languages, making it easy for developers to choose a language that fits their needs. Tendermint Inc is also pioneering the concept of Inter-blockchain Communication (IBC) for interoperability, and has worked with the Thai Government, Binance, Loom, Kava, Sentinel and TruStory.
Next month Cosmos/Tendermint is hosting a €10K Hackathon at Paris Blockchain Week.