As far as activity levels within an eco-system, this week has to take the cake for the broader Cosmos community. There has been 3 significant chain upgrades, 4 brand new chains brought to life, 2 airdrops became claimable, and another 3 announced. And its only Thursday!
Upgrades:
Cosmos ATOM: VEGA upgrade.
The major components of this upgrade were:
- Fee Grant module - allowing paying fees on behalf of another account.
- Authz module - Allowing governance voting on behalf of another account.
- Adding an IBC router to the hub.
- Some other behind the scenes upgrades to bits.
Seemingly, a fairly low visibility upgrade, with the IBC router likely to be the most impactful change, as I see it. This will mean that instead of needing links between each separate chain, chains can just link to the hub and then IBC traffic can be multi-hopped via the hub. Could save a lot of duplication of infrastructure if it becomes widely used, and once some kind of fee for IBC transfers is implemented, be a source of income for ATOM holders and validators.
Osmosis OSMO: BORON Upgrade.
Major components here:
- Claw back of OSMO and ION not claimed during the airdrop - returned to community pool.
- Add the Authz module mentioned above.
- Improvements to IBC processes.
- Enables validators to accept TX fees (currently 0 gas cost, but likely to change at some point) in any token listed with an OSMO pair.
The big ticket item here is the "claw back" of unclaimed airdrops. The airdrop was always set with a decay to the amount claimable, and an eventual end date. Now, that time has come and the unclaimed airdrops have been returned to the community pool. The TX fee change is interesting, and seems to indicate that an end to "free gas" TX's might be coming. I have not heard anything concrete about that yet, but adding this module in at this time might indicate that gas fees are coming.
JUNO: MONETA upgrade.
Likely the most significant of the upgrades:
- Enables Smart contracts via CosmWasm.
Smart contracts are the killer feature for JUNO, and having the ability to launch contracts and dApps, with IBC connections to all the other Cosmos chains is enticing. It is likely that that upgrade time will become a snapshot for future airdrops, as happened when Cosmos first enabled IBC back in February. Already, the first project is out of the gates, announcing an airdrop of NETA on Jan 1 2022, based on the Moneta snapshot. It is likely to not be the last. This upgrade brings smart contracts of all sorts, NFT's and all sorts of other possibilities to the Cosmos eco-system.
Chain Launches.
Gravity Bridge
The long awaited launch of the gravity bridge has arrived - well the chain has anyway. After some dispute within the community over the bridge launching as a separate chain, rather than on the Cosmos hub itself, the new chain has come to life. A Gravity Bridge module is still slated to be added to the hub, but it remains to see whether that will happen or if the Cosmos hub will accept a separate chain. Anyway, this launch brings the much anticipated bridge between the Cosmos eco-system and Ethereum. An airdrop will come at some point soon for ATOM holders of the new GRAV token. Building the front end, and wallet integrations is now the focus of the team behind Gravity bridge.
LUM network.
The LUM chain is alive and the LUM airdrop is now claimable. The airdrop is claimable at this link. With some actions required to secure the drop. Staking rewards are high at the moment, over 100% APR. The claim process is a bit confusing at first glance, with some different amounts showing as vested - but you can stake these vested amounts. We are also waiting for a governance proposal to be live, which allows unlocking the remaining airdrop. Lum seems to be targeting a business use case, as a rewards token of sorts, among other uses. There are two apps currently on the LUM website.
- Lumki - a rewards app offering LUM "cashback" for purchases through partner businesses
- Skeepers - a review website.
I'll cover LUM in more detail in the coming days, and update my Cosmos Airdrops post with all the details soon.
DIG chain
Dig chain's goal is to be a parent chain for tokenized real estate investments, with sub-chains launched to comply with local regulations. I am not really up to date with its plans beyond a quick look at the projects twitter handle. Being developed by Notional DAO - a validator on numerous Cosmos chains and one of the Eco-system's biggest IBC re-layer networks. This is a project I will look into more in the future.
Chihuahua chain.
A new Meme dog coin has arrived in the Cosmos. HUAHUA is now live, as its own chain with an airdrop of course. This airdrop is for delegators to the chihuahua validator on JUNO (1 million HUAHUA) or stakers of OSMO. You will get the JUNO drop only if 11 or more JUNO was staked at the snapshot, to avoid multi wallet drop farming that has occurred. I've seen in comments that a drop for ATOM stakers may come, but no details. As the self-described "Useless Meme coin for Cosmos" it will be interesting to see if this entertaining project takes off like other "Useless Meme coin's". Woof.
Airdrops.
As mentioned above, the LUM token airdrop is now live and available, with some actions required. Check the Lum network wallet and add to Keplr or ledger to claim.
Chihuahua is also available for those that have qualified. There has been a bug for the OSMO stakers portion which the team are working on. Connect your ledger to Omniflix and add the chain to see if you have qualified, claim and stake.
GRAV airdrop for ATOM stakers announced, but no details yet that I have seen.
Also NETA airdrop for JUNO stakers announced, again with no details.
Newsflash, an Airdrop for EVMOS has been announced also. Calling it a "REKT drop" the airdrop is targeting people based on GAS fees on ETH, some rug-pulls, along with the usual suspects of ATOM and OSMO participants. More details to follow.
I'll update my detailed airdrop guide in the coming days.
So much going on in the Cosmos this week, its been hard to keep up. I imagine that validators with operations on multiple chains will need a lie down.
Which of the above is the most important update for the future of the Cosmos eco-system do you think? Let me know in the comments section.
Cheers,
JK.
- Other great relevant posts: