Cosmos(ATOM)

The Cosmos (ATOM) network was launched by Jae Kwon and Ethan Buchman in 2017 with the aim to solve scalability, interoperability and usability issues faced by conventional blockchains. Today, Cosmos development is supported by a Swiss non-profit foundation called Interchain Foundation (ICF), and it is widely recognized as a continuously expanding network of interconnected and decentralized blockchains.

While the Cosmos whitepaper was released in 2016, its native cryptocurrency ATOM was released in 2017 via the most successful blockchain-based fundraiser of its time. The token sale garnered $16.8 million in funding within 30 minutes. The Cosmos Hub, a name often used interchangeably with the Cosmos network, is the economic center of Cosmos. It is a blockchain that interconnects all blockchains running on Cosmos through IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol and is secured by ATOM, its native token.

Using Cosmos, developers are able to build absolutely autonomous app-specific blockchains which can easily connect with each other. As a result, the platform is extensively used in domains like social networks, gaming, NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), DeFi (Decentralized Finance), marketplaces and DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). 

The Cosmos ecosystem comprises over 265 apps and services, with more than $50 billion worth of digital assets under management. Some well-known projects built using the Cosmos infrastructure include Crypto.org, Terra, Binance Chain, Athea, Bytom, OKC or OKX Chain and Polygon.

ATOM price

As can be seen in our ATOM live price chart, the coin’s price remained well under a dollar since its ICO in 2017 till around the Cosmos Hub launch in early 2019. ATOM price quickly rallied upwards after the Cosmos Hub went live, and breached the $7 resistance in June 2019. However, the price of ATOM kept moving between $2 and $8 for the most part of 2019 and 2020, ending the latter at $6.5. 

ATOM coin’s next noteworthy price action came in February 2021, soon after the Stargate upgrade. Further egged on by a market-wide bullish sentiment, ATOM price breached $25 by end of February, and continued its rise, breaking out above $30 in May 2021. 

Four months later, ATOM registered its all-time high above $44.50 on Sept. 20, 2021. ATOM’s fully diluted valuation at the time can't be calculated since it has no fixed maximum supply. The coin came close to its ATH in January 2022 but retraced to under $30 by the end of Q1, 2022.

How ATOM works

Rather than multiple blockchain apps competing with each other for resources on a single layer-1 blockchain, in Cosmos, each decentralized app has its own sovereign blockchain which is connected with others.

The Cosmos Hub, with its native coin ATOM, makes up the core blockchain of this internet of blockchains. It went live on the Cosmos mainnet in 2019 and was the first of the hundreds of thousands of blockchains to launch on the Cosmos network. It has been designed with multiple services, to serve blockchains connecting to Cosmos, including a decentralized interchain exchange, shared security, secure custody of digital assets and bridges to Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. The connected blockchains communicate with each other through an interoperability protocol called the IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communications) protocol. It is modeled after the TCP/IP technology and ensures the secure transfer of value and data between the blockchains. 

The Cosmos Hub, like most blockchains on the Cosmos network, employs a variant of the Proof-of-Stake mechanism called the Tendermint Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm. ATOM coin holders stake or lock their coins with network validators, thus playing a part in securing the Cosmos ecosystem. They earn rewards in the form of transaction fees (split amongst stakers) as well as voting rights to participate in Cosmos' governance. 

The IBC protocol and BFT consensus mechanism ensure that blockchains created on Cosmos retain their independence and can freely communicate with other blockchains. Besides these, Cosmos also offers developers pre-built modules in the form of Cosmos SDK, enabling quick deployment of super-efficient blockchains which can be modified based on specific use cases.

ATOM news, updates and highlights

In a significant development for the Cosmos network, its Stargate upgrade was implemented in February 2021, enabling, for the first time ever, seamless communication between Cosmos blockchains through the platform’s standardized IBC protocol.

More recently, in another noteworthy ATOM news, the network’s Hub Theta upgrade went live in April 2022. It added a host of features to the Cosmos platform, including giving the Cosmos ecosystem’s blockchains the ability to control accounts on other networks. With this ability, users on a specific blockchain can easily swap and/or stake tokens on a different blockchain, and conduct more account-related operations, including voting on governance proposals of the latter.

Frequently asked questions about ATOM

• Can you stake or mine ATOM coins?

You cannot mine ATOM coins but you can stake your ATOM holdings to earn staking rewards.

• Which are the best wallets for ATOM cryptocurrency?

Cosmos recommends around 35 crypto wallets for storing your ATOM coins. These include Guarda Wallet, Exodus, AToken, Atomic Wallet, Huobi Wallet and Trust Wallet. You can look at the list here.

• What can you do with ATOM coins?

You can stake your ATOM coins to earn staking rewards and have the right to participate in Cosmos' governance. You can also trade ATOM against other crypto coins on reputed exchanges.

• How can you buy ATOM coins?

The best way to buy ATOM coins is from recognized and established crypto exchanges. You can buy ATOM with fiat currency, or use crypto trading pairs like ATOM/USDT, ATOM/ETH, ATOM/BTC, ATOM/SOL, etc., to make the purchase.