Cosmos is a Decentralized network of independent parallel blockchains. Each individual blockchain is powered by consensus algorithms like Tendermint consensus.
Cosmos is a financial ecosystem all in it's own, each blockchain can scale and integrate with the others as they wish. Previously while there have been many other blockchain cryptocurrencies, most have never been able to communicate with each other so Cosmos just takes us one step closer into the future.
A blockchain is to be a digital ledger maintained by a group of validators that remains correct even if some of the validators could have error. Each validator has a copy of the ledger on their computer and updates it according to the rules defined by the protocol when they receive blocks of transactions. The goal of blockchain technology is to make sure the ledger is correctly replicated, meaning that each honest party sees the same version of the ledger at any given moment.
The benefits of blockchain technology is that the ability for parties to share a ledger without having to rely on a central authority. Thus blockchains are decentralized networks. The worlds first and most famous application of blockchain technology is Bitcoin.
Cosmos is founded upon the same ideal except it utilizes consensus safety. Everybody should see the same state at the same time. When a node receives a block of information they will verify that it is valid, meaning that each transaction is valid and that the block itself was validated across the network. Safety will be guaranteed as long as less than a third of validators are malicious.
Bitcoin the first peer-to-peer digital currency was created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. Bitcoin utilized a Proof-of-Work (PoW) validation process. Bitcoin was the first decentralized application on a blockchain.
Ethereum was the next major coin that came along founded by Vitalik Buterin's vision. Applications designed to run on the Ethereum platform run exactly as programmed without possibilities of downtime, censorship, third party interference or fraud. Ethereum’s blockchain is actually like a court system that specializes in securely resolving any dispute, this enables businesses worldwide to function in a fast paced environment.
Ethereum achieved this by turning the Application layer into a virtual machine called the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This virtual machine was able to process programs called
smart contracts that any developer could deploy to the Ethereum blockchain in a permission less fashion. This new approach allowed thousands of developers to start building decentralized applications.
Ethereum's and other blockchain's limitation is that
trying to create a single platform to fit all use cases does not allow as much flexibility. This is where Cosmos comes into play.
Cosmos in turn has the vision to make it easy for developers to build blockchains and break the barriers between blockchains by allowing them to transact with each other. The end goal is to create an Internet of Blockchains, a network of blockchains able to communicate with each other in a decentralized way. Allowing each blockchain to maintain sovereignty, quickly process transactions and communicate with other blockchains in the ecosystem. This flexibility optimizes many uses to function together easily.
In Proof-of-Work blockchains validators are called miners. A sovereign blockchain is a blockchain with its own validator set. Cosmos allows both types of validators to interact. In Ethereum applications are all run by a common set of validators.
Everyone is welcome to build additional tools to enrich the greater developer ecosystem.
This protocol can be wrapped in any programming language, making it possible for developers to choose a language that fits their needs.
Cosmos capabilities constrain security boundaries between modules. The Cosmos SDK also comes with a set of useful developer tools for building command line interfaces (CLI), REST servers and a variety of other commonly used utility libraries.
As time goes by, we expect multiple applications to emerge, each to be built with different architecture models and compatible with multiple consensus engines all within a single ecosystem: the Cosmos Network.
To learn how to code applications on top of the SDK you can check out tutorials.
ETHERMINT
Cosmos (ATOM) is available in the following trading pairs on Coinbase.com
USD-ATOM
BTC-ATOM
ETH-ATOM
USDT-ATOM
Currently ATOM tokens sells at an average $3.50 per token.
