Capture IBC value... Possible ?! Yes

How Can Cosmos Hub Capture IBC Value? I. Three Possible Approaches to Capturing IBC Value From the most elegant to the least elegant: • Capture +++ (Elegant and Sustainable) Cosmos Hub becomes an Interchain Security (ICS) provider, securing consumer chains in exchange for payments in ATOM. This creates continuous demand for ATOM and reinforces the Hub’s central role without introducing economic friction. • Capture-Extraction ±+ (Balanced but Less Seamless) Cosmos Hub implements IBC routing fees, taking a small percentage from transactions passing through it. While this generates revenue, it may incentivize some chains to bypass the Hub. • Extraction — (Intrusive and Risky) Cosmos Hub imposes a tax on IBC flows or captures part of the transferred value through coercive mechanisms. This discourages adoption, pushes chains to avoid the Hub, and undermines its neutrality. II. Why Approach 3 is Impossible & What Alternative Exists? Approach 3 (forced extraction) is not feasible because IBC is open-source. Chains can simply establish their own direct IBC channels, bypassing Cosmos Hub entirely and making any taxation attempt ineffective. A more viable…

Excerpt (1191 of 4665 characters). Read the whole post on the forum ↗

How to attract projects with the argument of offering a permissionless IBC infrastructure? A strategic approach would be to create a model where Cosmos Hub provides high-quality and low-cost services for existing projects. This could include: • Reducing infrastructure costs: Offering a turnkey solution for managing relays and IBC clients, allowing projects to save on maintenance and infrastructure costs. These services could be billed based on usage, making the transition to Cosmos Hub attractive for projects looking to optimize their expenses. • Stability and finality: By emphasizing the rapid finality and enhanced security of Cosmos Hub, it would be possible to attract projects looking to guarantee a high level of trust in their cross-chain transactions. Offering a robust and reliable infrastructure would be a major selling point for these projects. • Improved interoperability: Promoting connectivity and interoperability with a wide range of chains, enabling projects to increase their visibility and facilitate the exchange of value between them. Projects interested in expanding beyond their native chains might be attracted to Cosmos Hub’s ability to seamlessly…

Excerpt (1195 of 2755 characters). Read the whole post on the forum ↗

I favor your approach towards increasing the reliability and availability of back end services. As it stands cosmos’s main value prop is: Infrastructure in service of applications. We simply need applications to service. In my opinion IBC stays free (for the most part - maybe only pay for a specific niche of transactions). The real value capture comes from orchestrating app/product development efforts. Making chains interoperable and then softly telling everyone “sort it among yourselves” is one side of the coin.

Making chains interoperable then orchestrating the goal-directed development of products between sovereign chains in pursuit of credible revenue generating apps is the win condition. Shared revenue from co-developed products as a consequence of interchain orchestration makes sense.

Tl:dr: Band together and build the next generation of credible products then revenue share among each other = adoption.

Hello

I think yes, the best solution is to offer good infrastructures for IBC through a hub relayers for all chains as a service. IBC is open source so we cannot tax that and I still think it was a good decision as any chains can simply modify the code and delete this part. In the contrary, if the Hub offers something like a Relayer Hub as a service, for a small fee, playing with the “economy of scale” it could be a very good and elegant solution as it would cost way more for chains to set and manage their own relayers than paying a smaller fee for using the Hub ones.

The point would then be, not to make huge money on this, but rather placing ourselves as the center of IBC. Once links and partnerships of that kind are put in place between the Hub and all chains it will be more easy to make new products and services with them.

Edit : Note that, I think chains would still set their own relayers to not have a single point of failure, but, they would still want the Hub ones if they are more secure and professional.

Sir, I think that I solved it.