Cosmos 2021 Year in Review: The Year of the Stars

The past 12 months have flown by, and 2021 has been a fruitful year for the Cosmos ecosystem. From the release of IBC to the continuous growth of the network, we have witnessed the achievement of many key milestones. As we welcome the new year, let us take a moment to reflect on these accomplishments.

IBC Launched, Achieving the Vision of the Cosmos White Paper

At the beginning of 2021, the entire Cosmos community was preparing for or eagerly awaiting the release of IBC. In February, Cosmos launched the largest software upgrade in history, StarGate, which is the result of the collaborative efforts of multiple distributed organizations within the ecosystem. StarGate implemented a series of key upgrades and performance improvements to the Cosmos SDK, laying the groundwork for the official release of IBC in April.

The emergence of IBC has made blockchain no longer an isolated ecosystem. The network can avoid congestion and inflation caused by excessive decentralized applications competing for a single underlying resource. The release of IBC marks the full realization of the vision outlined in the Cosmos white paper proposed in 2016.

On April 2nd, the first IBC cross-chain transaction between IRISnet and Cosmos Hub was completed. Since then, there have been over 5.8 million IBC transfer records, and 25 chains have enabled IBC functionality. As one of the largest blockchains, Terra also launched IBC in October, bringing more possibilities to the Cosmos cross-chain ecosystem.

Cross-chain Bridge between Cosmos and Ethereum

As the Ethereum mainnet becomes increasingly congested, the demand for cross-chain solutions has become more urgent. In 2021, interoperability became one of the focal points in the blockchain industry, and we witnessed the official launch of the first cross-chain bridge from Cosmos to Ethereum.

Sifchain has become one of the most popular cross-chain networks in Cosmos and integrated the Peggy project at the beginning of the year. Compared to other Ethereum cross-chain solutions, Peggy allows users to perform cross-chain transactions between Cosmos and Ethereum more conveniently and at a lower cost.

Sommelier Network has also launched its own Cosmos-Ethereum "Gravity Bridge" - a bidirectional bridge managed by a global network of validators. The Sommelier Gravity Bridge includes Solidity contracts that control the bridge, Cosmos modules for synchronizing validators and batch processing cross-chain transactions, and relayers responsible for handling all batch cross-chain transactions.

The Althea team has also made significant progress. In December, Althea launched the Gravity Bridge Chain with an independent decentralized validator set, aimed at increasing adoption through strategic incentives. The Gravity Bridge was initially planned to launch on the Cosmos Hub but was later switched to an independent chain deployment to accelerate iteration speed, allowing all Cosmos chains to access the trustless Cosmos-Ethereum bridge. The Gravity Bridge Chain plans to use the "cross-chain security" feature after it is opened on the Cosmos Hub.

In addition, the TIBC streamlined cross-chain communication protocol, independently designed and developed by the IRISnet team, officially launched on November 15. This protocol is a subset of IBC that simplifies the cross-chain connection process and expands functionality, enabling seamless and trustless transfer of complex digital assets across blockchains. On November 16, a traditional Chinese culture NFT was successfully transferred from the BSN Wenchang chain to Ethereum via the cross-chain service hub using TIBC. On November 26, Cosmos officials reported that TIBC has supported enterprise-level cross-network application needs for heterogeneous systems.

Cosmos Global Event

Another highlight of 2021 was that after a long period of remote work, we were finally able to meet in person and communicate face-to-face with community members. The "Cosmoverse Conference," held in Lisbon from November 5 to 6, was a special event that attracted the most interesting projects and people in the ecosystem, offering two days of inspiring content and dialogue.

We also held the largest hackathon in the history of Cosmos - HackAtom VI from November 11 to December 10. This was a month-long online event, with offline warm-up events and a formal opening ceremony held in Berlin and Lisbon respectively. HackAtom VI received sponsorship from multiple projects in the ecosystem, had over 1900 registrants, and received more than 100 impressive submissions. The list of winners was announced on December 16.

Cross-chain Sustainable Development Mission

In 2021, the whole world became aware of the reality and urgency of the climate crisis. Faced with increasing natural disasters, global resource depletion, and rising temperatures, we must take swift action to reduce carbon emissions. Cosmos's mission is to become a leading blockchain ecosystem in the global sustainable and renewable digital finance sector.

This year, the Cosmos Cross-Chain Foundation signed a memorandum with "ixo - Global Impact Network" to implement a multi-year research and development, promotion, and strategic cooperation plan together with several partners. By working together, we can surely contribute to promoting inclusive finance, sustainable development, and saving the planet.

Cosmos Signal

In 2021, we also launched Cosmos Signal - a new high-impact quarterly keynote that reveals the latest developments in the ecosystem. Cosmos Signal aims to provide stunning visuals and includes a wealth of exclusive news and updates to highlight the evolving network strength and innovative capabilities of Cosmos. The inaugural release attracted nearly 500,000 views, achieving great success and serving as a perfect tool to attract more people to join the ecosystem. Cosmos Signal 2 will be launched next quarter, stay tuned!

Summary

For Cosmos, 2021 was undoubtedly an exciting year! From further enhancing blockchain interoperability to hosting live events, online hackathons, building cross-chain bridges, and issuing NFTs, we have always been enterprising. Please continue to follow Cosmos's social media platforms and blog for more updates!