Unlike most other EVM chains, Evmos claims it has launched entirely as a community initiative without VC funding; 50% of the initial supply of tokens was distributed amongst the Cosmos and Ethereum communities.
The governance set of the EVMOS token holders is “extremely active” participants, with several on-chain proposals that have resulted in real world events, according to an update shared with Crowdfund Insider. Being the first community-owned EVM, Evmos is changing the landscape of crypto events and hackathons.
We recently connected with Federico Kunze Küllmer, co-founder of Evmos. Federico talked about how the Evmos community is bringing in developers from across Ethereum and Cosmos to build on the platform that spans both ecosystems.
Our conversation with Federico Kunze Küllmer has been shared below.
Crowdfund Insider: What separates Evmos from other EVMs and Ethereum itself?
Federico Kunze Küllmer: The community. The majority of the initial supply was “fair-dropped” to Ethereum and Cosmos users.
One of the unique features that separates Evmos from other EVMs, let alone Ethereum, is its remarkable community. Unlike most other EVM chains, Evmos has launched entirely as a community initiative without VC funding. Governance voted to pass Proposition 44 on the Cosmos Hub (ATOM), allowing the Hub’s community fund to pay for Evmos’ (Ethermint at the time) development.
The initial distribution of Evmos at launch was primarily an airdrop of free EVMOS tokens to both Ethereum and Cosmos users, and was designed in a way to maximize decentralization of distribution with whale caps, low barrier to entry, and a system for allocation that benefited smaller shareholders more.
In proof of stake chains like Evmos, the security is only as good as the amount of value staked and how spread out the stake is amongst shareholders (distribution), and particularly because Evmos is a community initiative it set out to launch with governance power decentralized in this new community at the intersection of Ethereum and Cosmos.
Evmos airdrop, dubbed the “rektdrop”, was also novel for specifically targeting highly active members of the Ethereum ecosystem who had gotten “rekt” using dApps on Ethereum and paying high transaction fees. By rewarding these users, Evmos has attracted a highly engaged community.
In terms of technical differences, Evmos is currently the only EVM that supports IBC, making it natively interoperable with the Cosmos ecosystem and beyond. This opens the door for cross-chain interactions between dApps that live on separate blockchains that utilize IBC to transfer both liquidity and general communication messages.
As cross-chain composability grows, so will the MEV, or maximum extractable value, as searchers look to arbitrage etc across multiple blockchains. Due to the seamless interoperability that Evmos provides with access to IBC, searchers will be able to make DeFi markets more efficient and facilitate cross-chain interactions that aren’t achievable with the current state of Ethereum rollups.
Crowdfund Insider: Is Evmos looking to compete with Ethereum?
Federico Kunze Küllmer: Vitalik has voiced his opinion several times that Ethereum will likely replicate the Cosmos vision of interoperability with a multi-rollup architecture. Evmos is in a perfect position to accelerate this timeline, given it is an EVM chain built on top of the Cosmos SDK. Today, dApps on Evmos are fully compatible with both the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems, and in the future, Evmos will help projects gain product market fit by enabling interoperability with application-specific blockchains and other EVM chains.
As one of the central hubs in a multichain/rollup Ethereum world, Evmos will be useful for easily deploying rollups. Devs can deploy their dApps on Evmos first, get product market fit, then migrate to an EVM-compatible rollup or their own EVM-compatible cosmos chain using Evmos for shared security.
Evmos complements Ethereum by giving developers a platform to obtain product market fit and eventually launch their own appchains (and all of the flexibility that gives them), while remaining part of the Ethereum ecosystem by being fully EVM-compatible and interoperable with the IBC ecosystem.
Additionally, the Evmos team has created an extensive EVM library called Ethermint, that offers more flexibility and interoperability than Go ethereum currently does (Geth for short). Providing the entire Ethereum ecosystem and EVM chains alike with improved software and interoperability is a core value of the Evmos team.
Crowdfund Insider: Why would application developers want to deploy on Evmos?
Federico Kunze Küllmer: Briefly touching on the Ethermint library that was earlier discussed, Ethermint is the codebase library that the Evmos team has been developing for 4+ years. Evmos developers are excited for the potential cross-chain/rollup application composability and interoperability that Ethermint enables. Geth isn’t currently optimized for sovereign EVM chain deployment, let alone interoperability with other EVMs, which is why there are a plethora of bridges; ultimately fragmenting liquidity, increasing risk and worsening UX for users.
Another unique aspect of Evmos for developers is the fee module. On Ethereum, transaction fees are sent to miners and a portion of the fee is burned (ever since EIP 1559 was implemented). Evmos offers an alternative to this with a fee module that developers can leverage to collect revenue from usage of the dApps they deploy on Evmos.
For example, if a team built an NFT marketplace on Evmos, they would have the option to charge a base fee (half of the gas/network fee) that is directly sent to their wallet. Rather than burning native EVMOS that is used for gas fees, a portion of the fee is distributed to the application builder.
The common/traditional Ethereum rollups leverage Ethereum as the settlement layer, meaning that they inherit security from Ethereum for finalization of transactions. This may work for some projects, but others, especially as they scale, will want to have the flexibility to operate their own appchains, and Evmos will give them the launchpad to do so without having to bootstrap these blockchains from scratch on their own. Evmos aims to give developers a streamlined way to develop cross-ecosystem applications.
Crowdfund Insider: How has Evmos participated in the crypto community?
Federico Kunze Küllmer: Evmos has a proactive community that has organically funded several upcoming hackathons. Participating alongside Ethereum and other EVM chain developers, the Evmos community is making itself known within the Ethereum and Cosmos communities. On top of all the real-world events that the community has funded, the core team has consistently held weekly community calls where projects in the ecosystem gain visibility and anyone is allowed to share ideas or ask questions.
The governance set of EVMOS token holders are extremely active participants, with several on-chain proposals that have resulted in real world events. Being the first community-owned EVM, Evmos is changing the landscape of crypto events and hackathons. Already, the Evmos community has launched the Evmos Momentum Hackathon as well as a hackathon at HackAtom in Seoul, and more events to attract developers to the platform are in the works.
Crowdfund Insider: How can Evmos attract developers from the Ethereum/EVM and Cosmos worlds?
Federico Kunze Küllmer: Aside from the varying technical tradeoffs and unique bootstrapping environment that EVMOS provides EVM application developers, the Evmos community has a fund for developer grants. Also, the community has consistently approved proposals to fund various projects within the ecosystem.
Crucially, Evmos gives developers the unique opportunity to not have to choose between the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems. They can simply launch on Evmos and be integrated in both spaces from the get-go.