ATOMUSD
Cosmos / United States dollar
crypto Composite

Cosmos is a network of sovereign blockchains that communicate via IBC, an interoperability protocol modeled after TCP/IP, for secure data and value transfer. The Cosmos Hub, also known as "Gaia," is a proof of stake chain with a native token, ATOM, that acts as the primary hub for IBC packet routing among blockchains within the Cosmos network. The Cosmos Hub, like the majority of blockchains in the Cosmos network, is secured by the Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, Tendermint. Cosmos is designed to operate as a network of zones and hubs. Zones are application-specific blockchains with sovereign security and governance models while hubs are intermediary blockchains that observe the state of connected zones and facilitate asset transfer between them. Cosmos is not a blockchain but a toolbox to design new blockchains. However, Cosmos Hub is the first PoS blockchain that works as a hub between zones and contains a multi-asset ledger, and lets other subsequent zones interact with each other through the inter-blockchain communication protocol, IBC. Their interaction is powered by Tendermint Core, a secure consensus protocol that provides fast finality and is easily adaptable with Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain. Interacting with the IBC protocol requires chains to have a consensus mechanism that offers fast finality, meaning that Cosmos cannot use IBC for asset transfers between proof-of-work blockchains like Ethereum and Bitcoin. In order to bypass this shortcoming, Cosmos introduces account-based blockchains called peg zones (Peggy) and offers fast finality through implementing finality thresholds to blockchains with probabilistic finality. While Tendermint constitutes the networking and consensus layer of the application-specific blockchains built within the Cosmos network, Cosmos SDK offers a framework to construct the application layer by building deterministic state machines through SDK modules. Since the consensus mechanism and application layer are separate informational domains in Cosmos blockchains, the changes in the state-machines (e.g. transactions on the blockchain) are communicated to the Tendermint consensus engine through the Application Blockchain Interface (ABCI). Another implication of this separateness is that the blockchains on the network are not limited by strict rules when choosing a consensus mechanism. They do not require to use of Tendermint's vanilla version and can make adjustments on the consensus mechanism to render it suitable for application-specific purposes.