ATOM Endgame - Moneyness, Security, Liquidity

Greetings Cosmos Hub, In this post, I want to outline what I believe the $ATOM endgame can look like. There has been multiple potential pathways that have emerged that can accrue value back to $ATOM - many of which have different risk profiles, resources, and timeframes by which they could come into fruition. However, I believe $ATOM as interchain money is the best foundation by which both security and utility of $ATOM can exponentially scale. Methodology • Economic security as a function of liquidity • Liquidity as a function of utility • The Path To Maximal ATOM Utility Security as a function of liquidity Proof of stake security hinges on the idea that validators must bond tokens in order to be part of the block creation process. This act of bonding token creates “skin in the game” in a way that is an alternative to proof of work. Simply put, there needs to be a cost to creating transactions and ordering transactions in a way that is secure against a variety of network attacks. The most infamous network attack is of course, the 51% attack. The process whereby a single actor can control block production in a way that is no longer neutral, and can ultimately…

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Great post. Always like to hear your takes. Despite some of the hysteria and governance clown show would lead some to believe, Atom is still ok, but it could be so much more. There’s some doom (noise) due to it’s market performance, especially when you’re looking relative to other L1’s like Solana, but Atom still has an opportunity to remain important within the rapidly-growing Cosmos ecosystem, and I think that’s fine while it evolves. To me, it is very clear that it’s use in liquid staking and making it the prime $$ of Cosmos is still alive and well. That’s a good path to keep trending down. The key for this is just getting more protocols that make use of Atom derivatives and encouraging people to buy and use Atom. Protocols should crave that easily accessible Atom liquidity. Tech advancements to make consumer chains cheaper to run and everything Informal has slotted for next year are nice on paper, but it will also need to find a way to improve the Consumer ↔ Hub relationships and revenue share for the AEZ narrative to hold on. Having a direct mechanism for the Hub to participate in consumer chain governance is a good step in that, imo. More than anything, I think…

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Just a quick comment for all readers - there is no such thing as a 51% attack on the Cosmos Hub. In the above piece it might be used seeing as its also the name for a consensus take over but…

One would need >66.6% of the staked voting power to alter the consensus of any CometBFT network.

" Security over liveness"

Great post sir! I would like to highlight these there which are getting funded by AADAO. • regarding the wallets and decentralized identity, we have funded Anima to build. Proof of Personhood which is a claim and identity protocol compatible with the Cosmos wallets and ecosystem. This grant goal is to have Cosmos hub be the central chain in which Cosmos users identities are created from. • Atom as gas: both Mystic Laps and Leap wallet are building their own mechanisms of utilizing ATOM as the interchain gas token. • Cosmos risk team: Due to the result of some grants we funded that are building on cosmos sdk, Jehan proposed CHIPs which is a proposal that aims to provide a framework for making technical changes to the Cosmos Hub, this ensures a good review process and minimizes security risks as new changes are implemented. More can be found here: Cosmos Hub Improvement Process (CHIPs) . We are also funding Range Security for AEZ. This product provides IBC security monitoring which is a crucial public goods which isnt provided elsewhere in Cosmos. The goal is to cover the IBC activity on the ATOM Economic Zone, providing needed data to partner chains like Stride…

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I also actually thinking about to have ATOM as a native currency for new blockchains by default. So it still might be a customizable option but first one would be always ATOM.

And maybe some kind of percentage of transaction fees or something probably could go to the Cosmos community pool or something like that.

Just for your information I’m not a tech person

Good post, thank you for putting this together.
I think for the future of ATOM point 4. ATOM as gas, 6. COSMOS DEFI bank lending out ATOM and 11. branding ATOM as Interchain money will be key.

AADAO is funding the development of Proof of Personhood, an identity assertion and authentication protocol compatible with Cosmos wallets and ecosystem. The goal is for Cosmos Hub to become the central chain for creating user identities. Mystic Laps and Leap wallets are working on mechanisms to utilize ATOM as an interchain gas token. This could potentially increase the utility of ATOM on the Cosmos network. Jehan proposed CHIPs (Cosmos Hub Improvement Process) to provide a framework for making technical changes to Cosmos Hub, ensuring a thorough review process and minimizing security risks. Of course when thinking about how to buy proxies, other nuances come into play, but more on that later. Funding for the Range Security for AEZ program, which monitors IBC security in the ATOM Economic Zone to improve security and provide valuable data to partner networks.

Feedback on “The Path To Maximum ATOM Utility”: We extend our sincere appreciation for the comprehensive and thoughtful exploration you have presented. Your work reflects a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing ATOM, and we commend the quality of your analysis. In our response, we aim to engage with the points you’ve raised, offering constructive feedback and contributing to the ongoing discourse. • Relayers as first-class citizens: • Positive Aspect: Recognizing the importance of infrastructure (relayers) for a seamless user experience. • Critique: While emphasizing the significance of relayers, we would have appreciated more concrete strategies or proposals for the massive investment into relayer infrastructure mentioned. • Cosmos Hub Bridge: • Positive Aspect: Advocating for an excellent IBC bridge interface, acknowledging its role as a crucial touchpoint for users. • Critique: Due to its close relation to relaying, we would suggest to group these two in a joint operative framework. • Cosmos Hub Wallet + ATOM as first-class citizen in IBC wallets: • Positive Aspect: Recognizing the importance of wallets in enhancing…

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This is great, but what are the steps to implement it. Is it something that you just are dropping here hoping that somoene will do something, because it will never happen. My wild suggestion for you @Carter_Lee_Woetzel is that you start to build a team, and request a funding to the Cosmos Hub as a competing proposal compared to the recent exagerated request of AADAO. Time to have some competitiong going for DAO aiming to contribute to ATOM. This is one of the biggest chain in blockchain and deserves more teams wiling to represent it. Let’s have some healthy competition going, you have strong ideas, but now you have to make concrete steps to bring it to life. DO IT and THANKS!

Thanks for sharing Carter, some terrific ideas here. We’ll be discussing with AADAO team to try to learn as much as we can from this set of ideas.

The whole idea of gluing the words endgame when it comes to a utility of economics of a market, sounds like a bad idea. Just saying =)

A token doesn need to have an endgame

@Carter_Lee_Woetzel this is the post that made me sign up for this forum (it was referred to on Algorand Discourse this week).

How can we elect @Carter_Lee_Woetzel to AADAO?