You’ve heard of the major players in cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and more. By now you’ve also probably noticed a trend with cryptocurrency: what happens in one blockchain rarely, if ever, crosses over into another blockchain. In some ways, this is preferable. As blockchains grow in complexity and length with each transaction, it may not be that helpful to record the transaction of another blockchain, too. Afterall, the more transactions you have to process, the longer those transaction times usually are. As the old saying goes: what happens in Bitcoin stays in Bitcoin. What happens in Ethereum stays in Ethereum. You get the picture.
But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if there was a way to share data between blockchains, while still protecting the transaction speeds of each blockchain? What if newcomers to cryptocurrency could build their own project in a secure, but flexible, blockchain environment, before implementing it into the larger crypto economy when ready? The cryptocurrency Cosmos (ATOM) has set out to do all of that and more.
This week, we’re thrilled to add Cosmos to our growing cryptocurrency Marketplace. Keep reading to learn more about why this intelligently designed cryptocurrency caught our attention, and just why we think it was worth offering to our users.
What is Cosmos?
Cosmos (ATOM) is a cryptocurrency designed to solve the hardest blockchain problems that we face today. Created to improve virtually all aspects of blockchain-based economies, Cosmos has approached these problems from multiple angles. To better understand just how revolutionary Cosmos is, it’s first helpful to understand the three concerns that Cosmos addresses: scalability, usability, and interoperability.
Scalable Crypto
Every cryptocurrency wants to scale and keep up with growth. Unfortunately, this is often harder than one would initially think. As blockchains grow longer and more complex there is an increased need for computing power just to process new transactions. Not only does this higher drain on the system slow down transactions, but it also sucks up more energy in the physical world – not a good thing if we’re wanting to be environmentally conscious. Cosmos solves this problem by introducing what they call a Tendermint BFT (byzantine fault tolerant) consensus engine to power the Cosmos Proof-of-Stake.
Let’s translate that a bit. Byzantine faults are a type of error that distributed networks are sometimes prone to; it happens when a system is unable to know if an error has or has not been made at some point in the network. Cosmos’ Tendermint BFT is designed to resist these types of errors when processing new transactions on the blockchain. That means that an increasingly complex and lengthy transaction history won’t slow down processing speeds or suck up more energy.
Highly Useful
What’s the point of a groundbreaking piece of technology if nobody can use it? That’s often the case with blockchain projects – as well-intentioned as they may be, they’re often far too complex for developers to do anything with. Cosmos offers a solution to this common problem by providing Cosmos SDK, a modular framework for building blockchains for specific applications. With the ability to drag and drop different parts and make adjustments where needed, Cosmos SDK lowers the barrier to entry for developers and helps speed up the rate at which blockchain-specific applications find real-world uses.
The United Chains of Cryptocurrency
Every cryptocurrency project was built for a specific reason. Unfortunately, sometimes that reason leaves a project in a very small niche, unable to participate in the wider cryptocurrency economy. Cosmos offers their IBC (Interblockchain Communication) protocol to help unite blockchain environments and bridge this gap. Now, whenever it’s beneficial, different blockchains can communicate swiftly and easily with each other, improving the rate and quality of shared data.
Who uses Cosmos?
Cosmos is designed for an increasingly connected world. Much like the Internet allowed different communities to interact with each other and share ideas, goods, and services, so too will Cosmos allow different blockchains to communicate with each other. Anyone looking to share data between blockchains would be interested in what Cosmos has to offer. Additionally, because of their useful tools and intuitively designed protocols, Cosmos has created a way for other industries to begin implementing blockchain projects. People involved in healthcare, finance, cross-border payments, and more could all find something useful in Cosmos.
Designed to promote explosive economic growth through the power of connected blockchains, Cosmos is a cryptocurrency built for tomorrow.
As you can see, we were impressed with what the Cosmos team has created. Still have questions about what Cosmos can do? Be on the lookout for more content about Cosmos in the Discover section of the Metal Pay app, as well as on our social media accounts: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook.
🤘 Your friends at Metal 🤘
