Should AEZ chains have their own tokens?

The Cosmos Hub is unique in the blockchain industry for its level of decentralization, especially of its development teams. The launch of Interchain Security has invigorated new possibilities and brought in an incredible new crop of contributors. This very forum has never been more active than over the summer 2023, so I’d like to share some thoughts on what the AEZ could become: a cohesive suite of tightly-integrated applications, fully-aligned with ATOM, each introducing potent new functionalities and poised to emerge as the clear focal point of the Cosmos ecosystem. The AEZ can be visualized as a set of concentric circles With Replicated Security, consumer chains receive periodic IBC packets containing the Cosmos Hub’s validator set, effectively replicating the Cosmos Hub’s validator set across all consumer chains. With Opt-in Security, Cosmos Hub validators will be able to opt into running consumer chains individually. This enables the permissionless launch of consumer chains without a governance proposal, meaning a lot more scalability. With Mesh Security, the delegators of the Cosmos Hub will be able to delegate to validators in the consumer chain’s own validator set…

Excerpt (1199 of 7545 characters). Read the whole post on the forum ↗

Thyborg:

So why did the first consumer chains launch with their own tokens?

Let me copy/paste an exchange I had with Spaydh from Neutron (https://twitter.com/0xSpaydh/status/1687882764442288128) :

SPAYDH :

1. Would the Hub be ready to give Neutron millions of ATOM to incentivizes builders and growth?
2. If the requirement to launch on the Hub is 100% of everything goes to the Hub, no good project will launch/stay on Replicated Security.

WILLB :

1. No, because it doesn’t own enough equity in Neutron + the ICF are the ones with the atoms and they don’t care about Hub value accrual.
2. I think Duality is on track to be a good product, 100% is not a requirement but owning very little isn’t either.

SPAYDH:
I meant if Neutron doesn’t have a token. Will the Hub fund everything, the hundreds of millions that it’ll take to get it done?

WILLB:
Creating a token and selling it to VCs to raise funds seems like a better deal to me.

SPAYDH:
Exactly my point, which is one of the reasons why Neutron has a token. Either the hub is ready to cover the cost of making successful consumer chains, or consumer chains need to be empowered to do that lift themselves.

Thyborg:

Atomic IBC will build upon the key feature of shared security (validator set overlap) so that the ATOM economic zone can combine the scalability and sovereignty of a multi-chain ecosystem with the atomic composability of a smart contract platform like Ethereum. This has long been the ultimate goal of many blockchain designers, and Atomic IBC solves it elegantly.

Technically, Atomic IBC works by having participating consumer chains share the same mempool and blocks while maintaining separate state machines. Consumer chains participating in Atomic IBC run on one chain. Even though the blocks are shared, transactions of each consumer chain are run in parallel in their own lanes unless they are part of an atomic IBC bundle. This model is comparable to a DA layer plus shared sequencer in one platform.

hi,

there is something i want to ask,

(sorry for my poor english skills)

in that scenario, if/when Noble is part of ICS’d « AEZ », would Atom validators forced to censor transactions Circle decides to censor?

chains need to have their own token ! yes ! different degrees of alignment we can see . full aligned no token needed

Oh wow. We came to the IBC tokens I was suggesting 3-4-5 years ago =)

Sansara

If they do more than serve the hub - yes!
ex. Stride (dont want stSTARS governance decided by ATOM)

if they are just a single product for within the AEZ - no!
ex. Duality (can take fees to pay devs and perform just as well having ATOM or ATOM subset decide emissions etc.)

edit:
If they are a product without need for governance - no!
ex. Noble (the issuers on the chain determine what happens with their respective RWAs)

The AEZ should fully align only with SUCCESSFUL AEZ chains. Chains need to launch with their own tokens and bear the full market/business risk. The AEZ should be aligning itself fully only with the best projects that prove to have a good product market fit and to be a significant value add for the AEZ.