Cosmos Check-In #2

TLDR: Changing the way Cosmos works

With the rejection of proposal 82 last week, Cosmonauts have been hard at work to find out the reason and do some groundwork. However, some changes within Cosmos will still move the whole Cosmos ecosystem forward, such as Interchain Security and the formation of various Councils. Here, we look at some of these core changes and what it means for you.

Phase 1 of “Game of Chains” is officially over — here is the recap and what to expect next.

One of the most exciting news that has surfaced since our last check-in was that the Game of Chains — which is the incentivized testnet for Interchain Security that will run throughout the whole of November — has finally completed its first phase, which saw the focus on the onboarding of validators for Interchain Security.

As of now, there are 90 validators in the active set — with more onboarding soon — and some validators discovered multiple bugs that were patched, such as the inability to start consumer chains and an issue with the relayer operators not propagating validator set updates.

The next phase, which will see the switch in focus from validators to the actual consumer chains such as the Generic Asset Issuance Chains (GAH) that will host USDC, Neutron, and Stride, has since started, and you can follow the leaderboard of all the participants. here!

We’re pretty excited about the launch of Interchain Security that is expected to happen around January 2023, with the list of confirmed consumer chains here, as stated by Informal.

Source: https://blog.cosmos.network/phase-1-update-game-of-chains-85a40bc27572

It’s getting easier to integrate and use Cosmos

Apart from just the activities that have been going on around the Hub, other parties such as Delphi and Cosmostation have been working hard with the new products that they have unveiled, which makes the lives of developers much easier.

Delphi Labs unveils Shuttle

Shuttle is an open-source package that allows developers to integrate the most popular Cosmos wallets into their decentralized applications with just a few lines of code.

Essentially, this saves a lot of time for developers and worries about a particular wallet provider going down, as it allows them to abstract their application’s code from the wallet, thus breaking this reliance between application <> wallet, including the tooling provided from these wallets.

It sounds complicated, I know — so let me give you an example: If a current application called “App A” has built its infrastructure around, let’s say, Keplr, now they are bounded by Keplr’s tooling and are locked in with Keplr. If something goes wrong with Keplr, their application would be unusable… and this is where Shuttle comes in; to allow more flexibility.

Source: https://twitter.com/delphi_labs/status/1593349335089020928

Cosmostation is now integrated with Cosmos Kit

Have you ever had the experience of going to another country and realizing that the country’s using a different power plug? If you have, you probably remembered to get an adapter.

That adapter is what the Cosmos Kit is to developers — and this integration means that it will now be much easier to integrate Cosmostation into dApps. Pretty similar to Shuttle from Delphi, but this is just for Cosmostation. You can experiment with the kit here!

Source: https://twitter.com/IBCwallet/status/1593181284222009344

Skip open-sources their first MEV bot — and it’s available for anyone to use

If you have basic Python knowledge and are looking for MEV opportunities within the Cosmos ecosystem without having to code your implementation of it… guess what? Now, an open-source MEV bot runs on JUNO, proudly built by Skip.

This bot searches for a 3-pool arb opportunity within JUNO and showcases Skip’s capabilities within the bot (if the bot finds an arbitrage opportunity) by bundling the original transaction and your arbitrage transaction as a bundle to execute this arbitrage.

Want to try it? Check out the GitHub here or the tweet thread below for more details.

Source: https://twitter.com/SkipProtocol/status/1592942301566730242

New councils and boards within Cosmos

Apart from just purely technical advancements, new councils and boards were created, with the two major ones being the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) from ICF, and the Interchain Cosmos Council & Group.

Technical Advisory Board (TAB)

The Technical Advisory Board was created to provide guidance and implement a coordinated strategy for Cosmos to grow sustainably and comprises seven leaders across the ecosystem — all of whom are familiar with the past and present of Cosmos — as seen from the list below.

1. Christopher Goes, Co-Founder of Anoma
2. Dev Ojha, Co-Founder of Osmosis
3. Ismail Khoffi, Co-Founder and CTO of Celestia Labs
4. Jack Zampolin, Co-Founder and CEO of Strangelove Labs
5. Marko Baricevic, Founder of Binary Holdings
6. Zaki Manian, Co-Founder of Iqlusion
7. Zarko Milosevic, Chief Technology Officer at Informal Systems

The first actionable step for the TAB members is to evaluate proposals and direct funding to these proposers for 2023, and will co-ordinate with the governance and the management body of ICF.

We think that honestly, this is a great step forward to formalize companies that handle the growth of Cosmos, whether directly or indirectly, and allows for a much needed streamlined approach for all parties who are looking to get into Cosmos.

Source: https://medium.com/the-interchain-foundation/introducing-the-icf-technical-advisory-board-9495d4727585

Interchain Communications Council & Group

Next, we have formed the Interchain Communications Council, which will amplify the messaging of Cosmos and the broader Interchain through educating external communities, developing key core marketing concepts, building alignment with stakeholders across the Interchain, and much more.

Seven initial members across the Cosmos who are major critical marketing and communications stakeholders from major ecosystems will spearhead this council, as seen below.

1. Tor Bair (Chair) - Secret Foundation
2. Jelena Djuric - Informal Systems
3. Tyler Schmidt - Strangelove Ventures
4. Aaron Kong - Osmosis Foundation
5. Peter Kim - Polymer Labs
6. Frank Spence - WestComms
7. Mirza Uddin - Injective Labs

As for the Interchain Communications Group (ICG), this group will support and advise the work of the Interchain Communications Council (ICC), and will hold monthly meetings to sync with the ICC on the actionable for the near future.

Other interesting happenings

1. There is currently a proposal going around to increase the Cosmos Hub’s Tax from 2% to 10%, as an alternative to fund the community pool through the Tranche Model. Read more here.
2. If you are looking for the best websites and services that are providing data & metrics for the Cosmos Ecosystem, you can find the full list here that’s made by Thyborg.

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