A Note on the Future of the Cosmos Hub

Conversation Essays
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My dream would be to see a proposal on optimistic governance co-authored by @ala.tusz.am @Thyborg and @tom .

I’m hoping that if I write about it on the forum then it might come true :sweat_smile:.

I also think the biggest obstacle won’t be designing a good system, it’ll be about finding the right people. I also think that to attract the right people there should be a long-term vesting schedule to the tune of $10k USD in ATOM to make it more attractive for the right candidates to take some time and participate in.

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Whilst I agree that as a decentralised organisation, the Cosmos Hub has seen relative success from the perspective of various passionate stakeholders, co-ordinating with one another to take the Hub forward in its journey as a start up, I also believe a lot of process power is lost due to the lack of coordination and alignment between stakeholders and their vision and/or internal objectives for the Hub

100% and I believe this starts with renewing focus.

Currently the Hub has strong counter positioning as one of its foundations for success, however I also believe that this positioning is not a competitive moat.

Agree this is not a long-term moat. For example - What happens when Ethereum and Solana become IBC enabled ? The Hub will no longer be the most secure IBC connected chain. This is why it is important to start building a unique, powerful feature set.

The second would be the ‘Hub Minimalism’ …… it is an important aspect of a agreement between a consumer and provider.

All good points.

Should the hub want to go after the large Security market, as mentioned in this discussion, then wouldn’t it make sense to reduce these attack surfaces and reduce the risks of compromised security or chain halts resulting in reduced liveness, degrading performance for consumers and impacting their users and their experience with the products that the consumer offers?

Hadn’t thought about it like that but totally agree.

  1. Where do we want ATOM to act as money? 2) Do we prioritise the ATOM economic zone as the of ATOM money, trade, liquidity, perps and everything that was mentioned? 3) Is the ATOM sphere of influence for moneyness limited to IBC connected zones?

Start by running isolated, low risk, low cost experiments within the AEZ → Expand into other Cosmos chains with our learnings and continue to iterate → expand into other IBC connected chains with our learnings and continue to iterate → expand everywhere.

Questions like these will be important for determining the KPIs we set and where resources will be focused. Similar questions can also be posed from a security standpoint which I think is also important given the limited scalability of ICS in its current form. As was mentioned, the Hub does not benefit from economies of scale when new consumer chains join the zone;

Agree 100%

Is the AEZ a premium security space and economic zone for the best of the best, or are we building something different and wanting to cater to the long tail of roll-ups and app-chains?

In my opinion, the best of the best is necessary to make it sustainable.

I realise here that I am largely posing questions without answers, however I really wanted to share my thoughts on the topic.

I thought they were great questions. Will need some time to think about them but will definitely include some thoughts in future posts and conversations.

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Thanks for the reference to us ! We are happy to share our insights and will continue doing. But as we run a validator (PRO Delegators) we want to keep a relatively safe distance with governance positions in the Hub. Being part of the discussions seems absolutely OK, being part of the committees directly is another step. Maybe we will be ready to cross that step in the future, but for now we want to remain committed to our technical operator role ahead of the challenges coming with ICS v2-3 etc…

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This is sooooo right that I couldn’t even say how much I agree with you on that. It’s vastly underestimated and that’s what cause most of capital misallocation in the global crypto industry. Trying to solve too many problems in a centralized fashion is extremely costly indeed. Focus on the other hand forces specialization and skills improvement. This is the reason why we, as a team, see the Cosmos Ecosystem as such a valuable project, capable to solve immensely complex endeavors whilst still having dedicated and very focused teams (the app-chains). This App-chain thesis is the core of having a focus based economy. Each team does what it does best and have to specialize even more as the time pass. At some point in time the competition becomes cooperation as there’s not even a point to try forking and starting a new chain, builders would just collaborate on improving the existing one. This is where the complexities of governance come to the forefront ! These challenges will be very interesting to watch in the coming years.

On the ATOM’s role into this we have built a model around shared security that puts the hub in a central position for Security as a Service (SaaS) and we are about to release this is an extensive report. Without spoiling the entire thing, here is the part I am referring to:

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This explains why we think ATOM as a currency will be inherited by the need for a central payment & agreement chain for interchain security and also private security contracts for entirely private decentralized networks. These agreements would still require a public place to commit for the engagements. This is where we think the hub will play a central role. A chain for security payments & commitment contracts with anything regarding shared security even if it includes asset at stake that are not just atoms.

Overall, the presented ideas in your post are very interesting and quite similar to our own. There’s no denial that the Hub will be a very political area, and where many see this as a waste of energy, I think this is the strongest force that cosmos has. It is already ready to build complex governance where other still play the relatively centralized card instead.

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This is why we need you on a committee !

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I’ll do my best to find the time to add this to the long list of positions that I currently have in and out of cosmos on both the public and private contributions that I make for each of them !
I am still open for discussions and will do my best to offer the most I can to such committee

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Yeah don’t feel any pressure to do it. If you have other people in mind feel free to shout them out.

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This post was great. It echoes a lot of what many are feeling, but put very eloquently by someone with fresh eyes.

Longtime contributors to Cosmos have obviously made it what it is today (both good and bad), but I think the Hub and Cosmos as a whole need new thought leaders to move it forward. Now we have promising leadership emerging with people like Spaydh and the Duality guys.

There’s a lot of distrust, anxiety and frustration that has built up, and I think what we’ve seen for the Hub is the Atom 2.0 saga will probably be seen as a turning point when we look back. We’ve had time to see what’s broken over the past year, but now we need thoughtful, balanced leaders who build things with purpose and advocate strongly for what the Hub can become.

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There’s a lot of distrust, anxiety and frustration that has built up, and I think what we’ve seen for the Hub is the Atom 2.0 saga will probably be seen as a turning point when we look back. We’ve had time to see what’s broken over the past year, but now we need thoughtful, balanced leaders who build things with purpose and advocate strongly for what the Hub can become.

My thoughts almost exactly. It’s time to rebuild trust and realign incentives. That starts with governance reform. Everything else is just noise in my opinion and will distract the Hub from a healthy rebuild.

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This has been a great read @Elijah and I really want to emphasise how much I appreciate you taking the time to put this all to words.

I think the work being done by Blockworks (@effortcapital), RMIT and us (Binary Builders) is very much aligned with what you’re saying. I know you’re in touch with effortcapital, but would be eager to start a convo and get some feedback on how some of the modules we’re designing could play into this vision!

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Let’s start a convo !

Feel free to dm me on twitter and I’ll coordinate a gc

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nice of you @Elijah, i don’t even know if i would be useful to design a governance upgrade proposal, even if i have some ideas.

@ala.tusz.am is waaaaay more measured than i am. and i’m sure he could by just himself revamp the gov philosophy :grin:

and there are Binary, Blockworks, etc working on it, let’s hope they share your vision. (:

if i had a strength and only one strength, it’s i’am affiliated with no entity. i have no contract with anybody, and i own not enough tokens at all :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: to be biased.

to be honest if i had to contribute to something, i’d be more than happy to do it being part of an oversight group.
i already have a 40h/week job, and I’m currently launching a company (non crypto related) 10->20h/week… so i have not that much time left free! but 5/6 hours a week would be feasible, if needed.

unfortunately designing a whole new gov system proposal would need way more time to be focused on, so i guess i’d have to decline.

anyway, if my english grammar doesn’t burn your eyes, happy to share some ideas some day.

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No pressure.

Not sure that anyone is as measured as @ala.tusz.am so don’t sweat it.

Any help, feedback, ideas are always appreciated regardless of how much time you have to commit.

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Good post.

How to get ATOM adoption in Ethereum DeFi & rollups? How does any LST cap impact this?

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Actually I just posted an application for the ICF Council Member position. Let’s see

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Thanks Elijah for such a thoughtful post about the Cosmos Hub.

It’s true the Hub needs vision and focus. And I largely agree with yours, that the Hub should focus on a pair of core functions, interchain security and interchain money, and that it should have stronger governance to support itself. This was a big part of what ATOM2.0 tried to say, though you probably said it better :wink:

As for lack of focus, I see this more as a symptom of what has been a deeper issue for the Hub: its lack of an organized team for most of its life. It really wasn’t until 2023, with the work especially from Informal and Hypha, that a team organization for the Cosmos Hub really stabilized for the first time since basically its launch in 2019. This is a remarkable and poorly understood fact, but contains a lot of explanatory power. I’ve written up a separate thread about that history. I also did a video about it. The Hub has been uniquely decentralized, but also fractured. We can maintain our decentralization, but we need to better organize.

The Cosmos project has always put the stack first, and in the organizational turmoil of 2020-2022, it did not have the capacity to maintain a Hub team. Today it does. But there is still a lot of organizational debt to heal and institutional structure to rebuild if the Hub is going to be a leading DAO. The Hub is already a leader in Decentralization. And it certainly seems to be Autonomous enough. Now it needs to become a leader in Organization.

Which brings us back to governance. The Hub’s leadership and decentralization gives it a unique position to play in the political economy of the ecosystem. But to claim its rightful position, and to continue to lead culturally, it must mature its governance. For one, the Hub’s community pool has not truly taken responsibility for funding the Hub’s own maintenance and development. In my opinion, this is something that needs correcting, and should begin with Informal and Hypha.

I’m very happy to see more discussion here about governance, funding, and oversight committees, and look forward to the Hub taking more responsibility for itself, and for dev teams to be more directly accountable to it. But I would also caution the necessity to remain flexible, and to not try and centralize all decision making for hub funding and projects under a single governance committee. Committees need to be well scoped to each project they are responsible for and build up trust over time.

As for the TAB, it achieved its initial goals of simplifying and reducing the ICF’s budget for 2023, but for a variety of reasons (ICF capacity, clarity of expectations, conflicts etc.) did not have a productive way to continue working together. Part of the challenge was certainly the incredibly broad scope of the Cosmos project, which has in general been a challenge for the ICF. In any case, I’m looking forward to the continued improvement of the ICF’s funding procedures and transparency. Having the Hub step up for itself will definitely help.

Thanks again for opening this conversation and for such a thoughtful initial post.

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First off I really appreciate yours and Billy’s threads as well as your thoughtful response (and kind words). Definitely feel like I have much more context than before but still learning the history as I go.

As for lack of focus, I see this more as a symptom of what has been a deeper issue for the Hub: its lack of an organized team for most of its life.

I agree. Focus comes from community leadership and coordination.

The Cosmos project has always put the stack first, and in the organizational turmoil of 2020-2022, it did not have the capacity to maintain a Hub team. Today it does. But there is still a lot of organizational debt to heal and institutional structure to rebuild if the Hub is going to be a leading DAO. The Hub is already a leader in Decentralization. And it certainly seems to be Autonomous enough. Now it needs to become a leader in Organization.

Couldn’t agree more. I think the next few months should be dedicated almost entirely into rebuilding a governance system that the community can trust and that drives productive action. This should start with more discussions on what successful governance systems actually look like. I think looking to Lido and MakerDAO are the best places to start. With shaky foundations, we risk making decisions that shake things even more. In my ideal world, first, Governance is stabilized and second, long-term vision and objectives are set in collaboration with the community.

Which brings us back to governance. The Hub’s leadership and decentralization gives it a unique position to play in the political economy of the ecosystem. But to claim its rightful position, and to continue to lead culturally, it must mature its governance. For one, the Hub’s community pool has not truly taken responsibility for funding the Hub’s own maintenance and development. In my opinion, this is something that needs correcting, and should begin with Informal and Hypha.

To be fair I think the Hub’s community pool has not truly taken responsibility because the community does not have trust in how it is spent. While I’m naturally missing context on the history of everything, this seems to be a recurring theme in conversations I’ve had across the ecosystem. This is not to say that Hypha or Informal are ill intentioned or unproductive investments of the community pool, but rather if we expect governance to work properly, there needs to be policy. Policy that sets boundaries, provides accountabilities, and incentives production.

My ideas for “policies” are not necessarily good ones. To be honest I just threw most of them in because I thought it would be disrespectful if I spent a bunch of lines pointing out problems and providing no solutions lol.

(Not saying you agree or disagree) But as far as I can tell, the ICF should also continue to double down on growing the Cosmos Hub in a big way. If I understand correctly, the ICF was funded from ATOM. To investors in ATOM who have helped create and sustain the value of this funding, it seems to make a lot of moral and economic sense to focus a large amount of it on growing the Hub. This is not to say the development of open-source infrastructure like IBC, the Cosmos-SDK and more aren’t incredibly important and should continue, but that they should also be considered in the context of the value they bring to the Hub.

But I would also caution the necessity to remain flexible, and to not try and centralize all decision making for hub funding and projects under a single governance committee

Of course. This wasn’t what I meant to suggest. I definitely agree committees should be incredibly well scoped and not have more power than necessary.

The point is more-so that in one way or another accountability and clear indicators of success are necessary to be able to create an efficient system for resource allocation.

Committees need to be well scoped to each project they are responsible for and build up trust over time.

I don’t agree there should be per proposal committees. There are only so many people with time, qualifications and energy to participate effectively. Additionally committees being set by the proposer seem like a collusion vector in the long term (although it might suffice in the short term until there are established policies). I also think experience compounds into specialization and that as in other successful DAOs, committee members should be paid.

Really appreciate the time you’ve taken to respond and engage with the post and I think your engagement in this process will be invaluable :wave:

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It’s easy to shit on an existing system, and a lot of people like to do it. I’m not saying that the current governance system is perfect, and it’s not really even my goal to defend it here, but it’s naive to think that any other system wouldn’t have just as many vociferous complaints. The theme of the complaints might be different though. If you tried to put together some perfect system of committees, you’d have complaints that a bunch of insiders were embezzling all the money.

I agree with you that futarchy could present a market-based alternative, and I would be supportive seeing experiments with it, but as far as i know, it has never really worked at any scale. It seems like it could be tried to control a limited set of parameters with clear KPIs, and I would be very excited to see a concrete proposal for something like that.

I think that global committees are tricky, because you are giving one small group of people a lot of power. No matter what you do, someone will always be mad about them, will feel shut out, and someone will be bullying the committee members and alleging that they are corrupt.

Here’s my vision for per-proposal committees:

  • The committee is named in the proposal funding the team.
  • The team’s funding vests over the course of the contract.
  • The committee can always choose to end the funding and return it to the community pool.
  • The voters can always choose to end the funding and dismiss the committee, as well as the team.

This accomplishes the following goals:

  • The power of the committee comes from the voters. It’s important that this always be front and center.
  • One way the voter’s power manifests is in even choosing to approve the proposal with the committee in the first place. If you think that the committee is not going to act as a good check on the team, then vote NO.
  • Another way the voter’s power manifests is the ability to dismiss the committee at any time.
  • A large part of the role of the committee in this scheme is to provide information to the voters. They can meet regularly with the team, and ask questions that might not be getting asked otherwise. These meetings can be distilled into minutes and articles for the voters. This reduces the information burden on voters, helping them to gauge both whether the team is doing a good job and whether the committee is holding the team properly accountable.

I think per-proposal committees are the most realistic and flexible choice. They avoid the dynamic of trying to choose some perfect committee of experts to rule over everyone, and the personal drama that will entail.

The reason that per-proposal committees aren’t a collusion vector is because they don’t actually try to magically have some kind of perfect representatives that do everything with perfect impartiality and wisdom. The voters are ultimately in control.

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It’s easy to shit on an existing system, and a lot of people like to do it. I’m not saying that the current governance system is perfect, and it’s not really even my goal to defend it here, but it’s naive to think that any other system wouldn’t have just as many vociferous complaints. The theme of the complaints might be different though. If you tried to put together some perfect system of committees, you’d have complaints that a bunch of insiders were embezzling all the money.

Yeah it’s easy to shit on existing systems, but it’s also necessary to point out the problems in order to address them. My post or intent was never to “shit” on the system either, it was to point out the things that a lot of people seem to be feeling and start a conversation to change it. The fact of the matter is that governance is not working as a well oiled machine and there is a tremendous amount of volatility in the visions that are being presented which leads to uncertainty and unproductivity.

I agree with you that futarchy could present a market-based alternative, and I would be supportive seeing experiments with it, but as far as i know, it has never really worked at any scale. It seems like it could be tried to control a limited set of parameters with clear KPIs, and I would be very excited to see a concrete proposal for something like that.

Every large scale, successful business, government and operation I can think of sets KPIs and has defined policies for accountability. How can you say this is a system that hasn’t succeeded at scale ?

Call it a “futarchy” or call it “an organization that chooses well defined success measures and systems for accountability”, but regardless of what you call it this is how stuff gets done successfully pretty much everywhere and for everything at scale full stop.

I think that global committees are tricky, because you are giving one small group of people a lot of power. No matter what you do, someone will always be mad about them, will feel shut out, and someone will be bullying the committee members and alleging that they are corrupt.

Qualified members of the community should be empowered to compound experience in specializations and make tough decisions. If this is something we’re afraid of, that should change in my opinion.

As for the “bullying” that wouldn’t cease to exist in any case. And why should we let bullies dictate the efficacy of governance systems.

The committee is named in the proposal funding the team.

This is a major hazard for conflicts of interest. Why would the team requesting funding do a completely impartial job at picking a committee ?

  • The team’s funding vests over the course of the contract.
  • The committee can always choose to end the funding and return it to the community pool.
  • The voters can always choose to end the funding and dismiss the committee, as well as the team.

I definitely agree with all the rest are important for any system.

The power of the committee comes from the voters. It’s important that this always be front and center.

To me it seems like taking away power from the voters. The voters don’t get to nominate the committee members, the proposers do ! If you wanted to have the voters actually have power over the committee they should vote them in.

One way the voter’s power manifests is in even choosing to approve the proposal with the committee in the first place. If you think that the committee is not going to act as a good check on the team, then vote NO.

I believe that compounding multiple decisions into a single proposal is almost always worse that getting independent validation for each. From what I understand this was one complaint cited with ATOM 2.0 and something brought up in our Duality proposal as well (since we proposed that we would make a proposal at some point in the future for protocol-owned-liquidity)

  • Another way the voter’s power manifests is the ability to dismiss the committee at any time.
  • A large part of the role of the committee in this scheme is to provide information to the voters. They can meet regularly with the team, and ask questions that might not be getting asked otherwise. These meetings can be distilled into minutes and articles for the voters. This reduces the information burden on voters, helping them to gauge both whether the team is doing a good job and whether the committee is holding the team properly accountable.

Agree these are important but in no way is this unique to having the proposers of the spend choose the committee.

The reason that per-proposal committees aren’t a collusion vector is because they don’t actually try to magically have some kind of perfect representatives that do everything with perfect impartiality and wisdom. The voters are ultimately in control.

I am sorry but the proposers of the funding have an incredibly strong incentive to not nominate an impartial and a fair committee ever. There is a very obvious and strong collusion vector. And moving the voters out of the default choosing process certainly takes away their ability to have an impact on choosing an impartial committee.

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The point is not to appoint a perfectly impartial and wise committee to take responsibility for everything. If the voters find that the output of the team is underwhelming, and that the committee is not asking any hard questions, then they remove them all. I don’t think “collusion” really enters into it, since if they are not effective, they are all out. We need to design systems that function without perfect participants.

Also, I’m not really clear on the exact mechanism that you are proposing. How and when the committee is chosen, etc.

Could you lay out your proposal for an impartial global governance committee here in simple terms? Maybe also nominate some members. Let’s see how this thing could work.

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