Blockchain app specialist, Tendermint, winner of the 20,000 RMB prize for the "Most Innovative" Award at the International Blockchain Week Demo Day in Shanghai, has announced the unveiling of Cosmos, a novel blockchain network designed to solve an array of problems that currently hinder blockchains and digital currencies: a lack of interoperability, scalability and capacity for upgrades. Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine , Jae Kwon, CEO of Tendermint, explained that the goal of Cosmos is to eliminate the dependence on exchanges and create a decentralized network to allow the free flow of digital currencies. What is Cosmos? Cosmos is a network of independent parallel blockchains each driven by the Byzantine fault tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithm, similar to Tendermint. The first blockchain in the Cosmos network is the Cosmos Hub, which connects to other blockchains — also referred to as “zones” — through an innovative inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol that will support bitcoin, ether and all other major digital currencies. Through the hub, which hosts a multi-asset distributed ledger, data and tokens can be held by individuals or by the Cosmos zones. The data and tokens can also be transferred from one zone to another in an IBC packet (called a “coin packet”) throughout the hub, sender, and receiver blockchains. Kwon stated that by creating a federation of blockchains using Tendermint proof-of-stake to secure the hub and zones, sending and receiving tokens from one zone to another is quick, without the need to wait an hour for proof-of-work mining to add additional confirmations. “Additionally, it means anyone can create their own proof-of-stake chain or Tendermint-powered consortium chain and be a part of this federation,” he said. However, in order for it to be successful, there are still matters that need to be overcome. “The hub will be permissionless, so there will […]
