Thicc Chain: A Fantasy History of CosmosHub

Polkachu Intern | 2024-03-17

March is over but I am still mad. So it is the perfect time to write a fantasy history of CosmosHub. In my mad dream, CosmosHub rides the passing of Prop 69 "Include CosmWasm in Rho Upgrade" to become the thiccest chain in the Interchain. Even madder, I am voting "Yes" on CosmosHub Prop 895 "Signaling Proposal: Permissioned CosmWasm" in an attempt to force my dream into reality.

Thicc Chain Thesis

Joel Monegro has a famous Fat Protocol Thesis. It states that most values accrue to the base-layer protocols instead of applications.

In contrast, my Thicc Chain Thesis states that, in a world where most chains just run one specific application, a thicc chain that bundles many applications together can accrue most values. The thicc chain does not need to do every application perfectly; rather, as long as each application is good enough, the tight integration of these applications make them the top choice for developers and users.

As a strong believer of the app-chain thesis, I also see the mental exhaustion of having too many app-chains. If I am a developer on Chain A, why do I have to call Chain B for a price oracle and Chain C for a random number generator? Wouldn't it be nicer if I could rely on my home chain for most of these functions? The same thing applies to users. While IBC is cool and shit, you know what's even better? Getting my shit done without IBC.

Therefore, after the Cambrian explosion of many app-chains in the past 3 years, every chain is in a race to become the thiccest chain.

A Fantasy History of CosmosHub

CosmosHub has missed the opportunity to be a thicc chain that this intern loves to see. Every night I cry myself to sleep with a sweet dream of a fantasy history of CosmosHub.

• May 2022: This intern time-travels back and educates the mass on this Thicc Chain Thesis. It is a big hit, turning the tide and separating the sea. Prop 69 "Include CosmWasm in Rho Upgrade" narrowly passes with a margin of 51% to 49%. The "No" voters are deeply disappointed by the outcome. ATOM token price crashes by 30% in a mass sell-off. The remaining community is deeply aligned with this Thicc Chain Thesis.
• February 2023: CosmosHub successfully upgrades to v8-Rho with permissioned CosmWasm. In the depth of the bear market, CosmosHub's high market cap and deep liquidity attract many Cosmos developers to work for the Hub.
• March 2023: CosmosHub announces a strategic partnership with Astroport in a direct shot at Osmosis. It also passes a proposal to shorten the proposal voting period from 14 days to 5 days to ease the deployment bottleneck.
• April 2023: Astroport is deployed on the Hub. ATOM is the base token for all pair pools, cementing its status of "ATOM is money" among Cosmonauts. Through a series of token incentives, Hub's Astroport reaches 50% of the Osmosis TVL within 1 month.
• May 2023: Riding on the success of Astroport, CosmosHub acquires Mars Protocol, making its lending/borrowing outpost on the Hub the canonical deployment. Degens enjoy the composability between Mars and Astroport and make some risky moves for science. DeFi on the Hub becomes one of the bright spots in an otherwise gloomy crypto market.
• June 2023: Through a token-equity swap deal, CosmosHub "acquires" Confio in a commitment to make CosmWasm the "first-class" public good for the Interchain. In a surprising next move, Confio hires Larry0x as Chief product Officer and fully funds the development of CosmWasm SDK as an alternative to CosmosSDK.
• July 2023: A few more marquee applications are deployed on CosmosHub, including DAO DAO, a naming service, a NFT marketing place and a perp trading platform.
• August: Prop 811 proposes that CosmosHub moves to permissionless CosmWasm. The community is having so many fun in this already thriving ecosystem and rallies in support. It passes with 90% community support, this removing the last restriction against permissionless innovations.
• September: CosmosHub and Stride announce a merger proposal right before Cosmoverse. The proposal lays out a vision that Hub will be the liquid staking hub for the ecosystem. Liquid staking is one of the first major ecosystem product for CosmosHub. Of course, it will not be the last.
• October 2023: During Cosmoverse, a three-way partnership is announced between CosmosHub, Noble and Circle. In the partnership, CosmosHub commits to make Noble USDC the canonical stablecoin on all applications on the Hub.
• November 2023: We see the madness of inscription NFT on CosmosHub. ATOMonkes becomes the most popular inscription that rivals NodeMonkes on Bitcoin. Every BadKids holder get an airdrop of ATOMonkes because that is a cool thing to do.
• December 2023: CosmosHub takes advantage of the holiday lull to optimize its tech stack. It adopts Sei's Twin Turbo technology to speed up the block time to 2 seconds while keeping its 185 validator set. Of course, many validators have to upgrade their hardware.
• January 2024: The bull market is back in full swing after the Bitcoin ETF approval. At this point, CosmosHub has well established itself as the flagship project in the Interchain and sees its token price passing ATH.
• February 2024: As it becomes increasingly clear that CosmosHub is the thiccest chain, many small app-chains seek out CosmosHub for acqui-hire. The candidates may or may not include Nois, Quasar, and Chihuahua.
• March 2024: The memecoin craze happens on Solana first, but it quickly spills over to CosmosHub. ATOMWifCap is the most popular, and it beats DogWifHat to become the first memecoin to grace Las Vegas Sphere. This intern mistakenly makes a Test token and begs people to ignore and not buy, but no one listens to me. People are having fun.
• April 2024: Ethos announces that it will use both ETH and ATOM for its restaking app-chain. Here, history comes full circle: CosmosHub ignores Interchain Security in its single-minded pursuit of thiccness, but in the end it becomes the default security provider through a restaking app-chain. There is a lesson there.

Why CosmWasm Now

Waking up from my sweet dream, I see a very different CosmosHub. It bets the whole future on one single application (Interchain Security) with mixed success so far. It has capable teams working on it through community funding and foundation funding, but it lacks organic developer adoption (because there is nothing to develop). Its community have not wavered in their long-term faith, but they are not having a good time currently (as far as I can tell).

But we do not have to live like this. A blockchain is nothing without its people and people can give it a second chance. Here, history comes full circle, as we have a second chance to vote on a CosmWasm proposal. The best time to adopt CosmWasm was Prop 69 in May 2022, and the second best time is now.

I (and my mgmt) vote yes on CosmosHub Prop 895 "Signaling Proposal: Permissioned CosmWasm", because being thicc is choosing rich.