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Cosmos 2022 Outlook: Compatible with Ethereum, DeFi and NFT ecosystems may usher in an explosion

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In 2020, several Cosmos ecological innovation projects will launch airdrops.

Original title: " What's Coming to Cosmos in 2022? "

Original source: Cosmos blog

Original compilation: Dong Yiming, chain catcher

As another incredible year has passed, there has been an explosion of innovation in the Cosmos ecosystem. But launching the IBC and completing the Cosmos white paper is not the end of the story, we have just begun this amazing journey, with so many exciting plans coming up, and plenty of development projects already in the pipeline for 2022.

1. Cosmos Hub will continue to develop

In 2022, Cosmos Hub will introduce many new features, Major upgrades are planned at least quarterly.

Interchain Security

< p>Interchain Security is currently being developed by the Interchain Foundation and Informal Systems. This shared security service allows Cosmos chains to effectively rent security to each other so that new chains become economically self-reliant, and validators and delegators on the larger chain are rewarded for this service. Even better, Interchain Security will allow validators and delegators to earn rewards on multiple chains across multiple tokens simply by staking ATOMs on the Hub. The new chain will benefit from a strong validator security set and expose its tokens to Cosmos community members at an early stage. At the same time, Cosmos Hub stakers gain early access to innovative projects and increase the utility of their ATOMs.

Interchain Accounts

Interchain Accounts will land on Cosmos Hub, and the Theta upgrade is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2022. Cross-chain accounts have several major impacts on the Cosmos ecosystem, one of which is the ability to take Cosmos DeFi to the next level. This is because Interchain Accounts allow ecological chains to securely control accounts on other ecological chains, rather than simply transferring tokens from one chain to another.

Now think about Ethereum. Complex financial instruments can be traded without permission through a set of smart contracts, each of which handles a part of the overall business process. In the Cosmos ecosystem, smart contracts cannot immediately access each other because each smart contract or application is essentially a blockchain.

With IBC, you can move tokens between networks, but you cannot trigger actions on another chain like you can with smart contracts on Ethereum . Interchain Accounts changes all that by providing the composability and interoperability smart contracts need to create the DeFi explosion in application-specific blockchains!

Interchain Accounts will also make it easier for developers to interface with IBC, as new chains can leverage the functionality and capabilities of existing accounts without having to recreate these from scratch Function.

Liquid Staking

The first Liquid Staking release, spearheaded by Cosmos core contributor and Iqulsion founder Zaki Manian, will launch as early as February 2022, with direct integration into the Cosmos SDK. Version 1 of Liquid Staking will allow ATOM holders to send transactions that instantly convert their staked ATOMs into a transferable representation that can be used in liquidity pools and other activities. This opens up more possibilities in the DeFi space, allowing holders to maximize their ATOMs while still earning staking rewards.

In the first version of Liquid Staking, Liquid Tokens are bonded to validators where delegators stake their ATOMs. However, this design can be restrictive and not necessarily ideal. That's why Liquid Staking version 2 is fast-following. The P2P team behind Lido has drafted a proposal that would make Liquid Staking an essential part of the Cosmos Hub. As one of the oldest validators in Cosmos, P2P has developed a Liquid Staking solution for Ethereum 2.0, allowing people to stake Ether while staking it. Lido now owns 90% of all staked ETH in ETH 2.0 and also runs bLUNA, Terra's popular Liquid Staking implementation.

Liquid Staking is difficult to implement without smart contracts, so the Cosmos Hub team will add CosmWasm to Cosmos Hub and let Lido create the smart contracts needed for this functionality. In the future, installing CosmWasm on the Hub will allow it to connect to any chain and manage their staking process through IBC communication. This will make the Cosmos Hub directly the core of Interchain and increase its usability according to its values and strengths, becoming a real port city in the Cosmos ecosystem. Watch this space for more details.

Second, IBC will become an ecosystem of "200 chains"

2021 is the year IBC enters The year of the market, the main Cosmos chains form a thriving interconnected economy, by 2022, thanks to Cosmos' powerful technology stack and developer-friendly blockchain frameworks (such as Starport with IBC interoperability) , IBC adoption will be truly remarkable. As the Tendermint CEO told CryptoSlate, “I think we will easily see 200 chains connected via IBC by this time next year, and maybe even a million chains in the long run.”

We will also see the work done by various teams using IBC to connect Cosmos to their ecosystems. In 2022, that means secure connections to Bitcoin, Celo, Polkadot, Kusama, Harmony, Hyperledger Besu, Hyperledger Fabric, and more. The free flow of assets between these major blockchains will create enormous opportunities for scalability and growth — and ultimately, a DeFi level playing field with low fees, high throughput, and a large selection of products.

Third, Cosmos DeFi will usher in an explosion

More liquidity with IBC connection , the ability to manage complex transactions across blockchain accounts, and bridges to major ecosystems to unleash liquidity, Cosmos DeFi will experience explosive growth. Emeris will launch publicly in spring 2022 and will bring many highly anticipated features, including advanced capabilities for portfolio visualization, digital asset management, and service discovery. There will also be automated reward mixing to maximize reward generation, cross-chain DEX aggregation, an airdrop tracker, and a browser extension that works seamlessly with the Emeris network dashboard.

Osmosis will also release its version of liquid staking called Superfluid Staking in the coming months. This will allow OSMO holders to use their tokens for both staking and providing liquidity, and ensure that the governance of the protocol serves the interests of liquidity providers.

Another team that has made great progress in the DeFi space and is working hard to bring Ethereum into Cosmos is Evmos, or "EVM-on-Cosmos" (formerly known as for Ethermint). Evmos aims to be the EVM hub of Cosmos, allowing EVM smart contracts to be easily deployed and communicated within the Cosmos ecosystem. The chain is already in the Incentivized Testnet and will be coming to Cosmos in January 2022. Evmos is an application-agnostic chain that is interoperable with Ethereum mainnet, EVM Compatible Environment, and other BFT chains via IBC, and will serve as an EVM hub for any other EVM Cosmos chain.

Also be sure to keep an eye out for Umee in 2022, the first DeFi protocol to provide infrastructure for cross-chain interactions. Umee raised $6.3 million in seed funding in 2021, backed by Tendermint, Coinbase Ventures, ConsenSys' Jo Lubin, and other big names in the industry. Umee allows users to create lending positions, discover yield opportunities, and explore trustless cross-chain DeFi applications.

Fourth, NFTs will grow into giants on Cosmos

In addition to the fast-growing DeFi field , 2021 is also the year of the NFT, as interest in digital artwork, digital collectibles, and immutable digital proofs of ownership surges. With mainstream interest in NFTs so strong, it looks like their popularity will continue in 2022.

Many projects in the Cosmos ecosystem have already laid the groundwork for this year's launch, including Stargaze, a public protocol for NFTs, and Pylons, a An interoperable system for developers to build products using NFTs, BitSong, the first music NFT marketplace, Omniflix, an NFT-powered decentralized media and networking layer, and Secret Network's Stashh, a full-stack platform and market. Evmos will also soon support an NFT deployment and escrow marketplace so people can easily trade and deploy NFTs.

In particular, Strangeclan will release the first virtual town of its adventure game in 2021, complete with quests, social events, competitive battles and Ability to mint NFT characters, items and tokens. The game will be developed incrementally and we look forward to exciting future releases in 2022.

IRISnet, a long-term contributor to Cosmos, also completed pioneering work in the NFT field in 2021, successfully conducting the first cross-four chains in a permissioned environment and cross-chain NFT transfers in the field of public chains: WenChang chain in BSN, IRITA Hub, IRIS Hub (aka IRISnet)) and Ethereum. NFTs that are digital twins of two exquisite Chinese paintings are now available for global markets on OpenSea’s EASTIP.

We're excited to follow the progress of all these incredible NFT projects over the next few months and will update you as they happen.

Five, the more important airdrop

Finally, don't miss the upcoming 2022 Lots of amazing airdrops. Some of the most innovative projects in the Cosmos ecosystem will go into production next year, spanning everything from NFTs to decentralized social media, DeFi to gaming and more. Keep an eye out for airdrops from Evmos, Umee, Gravity Bridge, LikeCoin, Game, Stargaze, BitSong, and Cyber, and make sure to stake your ATOMs with Cosmos validators to qualify.

6. The developer community will continue to expand

Starport will help us realize the cooperation with IBC by the end of 2022 Aiming for 200 connected blockchains, it is an all-in-one platform to build, launch and maintain any crypto application on a sovereign and secure blockchain using the Cosmos SDK. Starport provides the best developer experience in the industry, empowering developers to build blockchains for a multi-chain future.

The Starport developer community has grown rapidly, with 422 blockchains created and pushed to GitHub to date. This year alone, some of the most interesting projects in Cosmos have been created using Starport, including SifChain, Juno, Osmosis, Umee, and Lum Network. In just two months, the Starport Discord group has grown into an active community of nearly 600 developers. The newly launched Starport Twitter has reached 5,000 followers, and about 200 developers visit the Starport documentation every day for instructions and tutorials - numbers that will grow exponentially in 2022.

During HackAtom VI we received some very high quality Starport challenge submissions and we look forward to bringing these ideas into production and working with more open source contributors. Starport will add some key new products and features in 2022 that will allow developers to be most successful when launching blockchains. You'll hear a lot more about this in the coming months.