The Cosmos network consists of three layers: the application layer, the networking layer and the consensus layer.

The application layer processes transactions and updates the state of the network, while the networking layer allows communication between transactions and blockchains. The consensus layer helps nodes agree on the system's current state.

Cosmos uses a set of open-source tools to connect the various layers together and enable developers to build dApps.

A major concern for some in the crypto industry centers on the levels of fragmentation seen in blockchain networks. There are hundreds in existence, but very few of them can communicate with each other. Cosmos aims to turn this on its head by making this possible.

Cosmos is described as “Blockchain 3.0” — and as we mentioned earlier, a big goal is ensuring that its infrastructure is straightforward to use. To this end, the Cosmos software development kit focuses on modularity. This allows a network to be easily built using chunks of code that already exist. Long-term, it’s hoped that complex applications will be straightforward to construct as a result.

Scalability is another priority, meaning substantially more transactions can be processed a second than more old-fashioned blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum. If blockchains are to ever achieve mainstream adoption, they’ll need to be able to cope with demand as well as existing payment processing companies or websites — or be even better.

ATOM has a very specific total supply — 260,906,513 to be exact. Of these, at the time of writing, about 203,121,910 were in circulation. It is worth noting that these cryptocurrencies aren’t mined — instead, they are earned through staking.

Two private sales were held in January 2017, followed by a public sale in April of that year. This raised a total of $16 million, which is the equivalent of about $0.10 per ATOM.

Breaking down the token distribution, about 80% was allocated to investors, while the remaining 20% was split between two companies: All In Bits and the Interchain Foundation.

Cosmos has compared ATOM tokens to the ASICs that are used to mine Bitcoin. As a technical paper written by the Tendermint team explained: “It is a piece of virtualized hardware (economic capital) that you need to obtain in order to participate as a keeper in the network.”

The Interchain Foundation, a non-profit organization of the Cosmos ecosystem, announced the release of the Interchain Accounts upgrade on Feb. 17, 2022. Launched in April 2021, the Inter-Blockchain Communications (IBC) protocol is the Cosmos standard for blockchain interoperability. It allows an individual blockchain to control an account on a separate chain. There are 38 projects utilizing IBC currently, notably Terra, Crypto.org chain and Gravity bridge. The Interchain Accounts upgrade will be the largest to the ecosystem since Stargate — which enabled Cosmos blockchains to connect with each other using the standardized protocol for IBC for the first time ever. With Interchain Accounts, users can stake, vote, swap tokens and more on other blockchains. The upgrade serves the purpose of “enabling composability in IBC [which] allows innovation in distinct applications to be deployed without needing to upgrade the entire Interchain.”

Check out simple definitions for crypto terms in our glossary

Learn about blockchain basics with CMC Alexandria