CHIPs Discussion phase: Permissionless ICS
Permissionless ICS marks the next evolution of Interchain Security: allowing anyone to launch a chain on the Hub, permissionlessly. The first version of ICS, Replicated Security, required a governance proposal to add a consumer chain. This is because the majority of validators were obligated to run each consumer chain. With ICS 2.0, the majority of consumer chains are expected to use a mode called opt-in security. With opt-in, validators are free to choose whether they want to run a given consumer chain. In principle, this should also enable consumer chains to be created permissionlessly, using a simple transaction instead of a governance proposal. The current release of ICS still uses a governance proposal to create consumer chains, even though permissionless creation is possible in theory. This is because switching to fully permissionless chain creation will take some refactoring of the codebase and we wanted to stage the work to release something as soon as possible. We’re about to start on this work and are releasing this discussion-phase CHIPs post to follow the process and just in case anyone has any different ideas or any good reasons to keep chain creation…
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Glad to see ICS moving towards a fully permissionless model! This also gives the teams more flexibility and control over the early launch stages which seems to be very important today.
What would be the timeframe for this to be live on-chain?
Will there be some sort of marketplace for validators to find these new chains, or how will these chains let operators know they’re launching?
I really love this direction.
Tricky:Will there be some sort of marketplace for validators to find these new chains, or how will these chains let operators know they’re launching?
Yes - I’ll charge a flat fee for telegram intros 
On a serious note, we’re working on something to help with this coordination. Both to help consumer chains figure out the validators they want or need (based on voting power needs, etc), and something for validators to see the chains in the pipeline and make contact.
Agree that this is crucial. Knowing who to contact when getting started as a consumer chain is already difficult. Going permissionless and opt-in will just compound those issues if not addressed
jtremback:
- The development/community DAO of a pre-launch consumer chain sets the spawn time to start the chain once development is complete and enough validators have opted in.
- A consumer chain’s on-chain governance modifies the consumer chain’s DenyList to exclude exchange validators.
- A consumer chain’s governance raises the ValidatorNumberCap to let more validators into its active set.
These are really great features. We saw that particular point as a potential improvement area in our PSS review. It’s encouraging to see that these areas of concern are currently being addressed in the development pipeline.
Syed:On a serious note, we’re working on something to help with this coordination. Both to help consumer chains figure out the validators they want or need (based on voting power needs, etc), and something for validators to see the chains in the pipeline and make contact.
Definitely aligned with this.
What is the price for getting a Chain Id? I’d say 1000 ATOM.
If there is no price for permissionless chain creation, bots will create ghost chains non-stop. We need to somehow prevent spam.
Peut-être qu’au lieu d’imposer un prix pour l’obtention d’un id, il faudrait imaginer une période “proof of seriousness” pendant laquelle la gouvernance d’Atom peut rm -rf une consumer chain malhonnête/spam.
En somme garder l’aspect permissionless “pur” mais en imposant à chaque nouvel entrant une période d’essai sous l’oeil de la communauté Atom.
Sinon, bravo aux équipes en charge de ces évolutions, ça fait du bien de voir le développement du Cosmos Hub sous stéroïdes.
Excited to see such shipping 
In this design, it is OK for two chains to have the same chain ID. This mirrors IBC. For example, right now I could set up a channel to a chain with the chain id osmosis-1, even though osmosis already exists.
ser, we are on a mission.
Tricky:Will there be some sort of marketplace for validators to find these new chains, or how will these chains let operators know they’re launching?
The details of this will be featured on our Q3 roadmap, which will be released after the next oversight committee meeting. You might get a sneak preview if you’re attending the Cosmos Hub ethCC event.
Syed:Yes - I’ll charge a flat fee for telegram intros
For the record, I will charge 5% below whatever @Syed charges.
jtremback:Consumer chain ownership
sounds cool. would love to see where this unfolds