IBC is a public good that no one can own, making this interoperability proposal the best because it involves no third-party risk or value extraction.
But how does Atom position itself in this transparently built ecosystem?
The answer is simple: the only way to survive is by collaborating and offering the best value proposition possible. For the Cosmos Hub, this clearly means promoting its validator set through ICS no need to look further. This makes Atom unforkable, a five-year-old infrastructure with governance that has stood the test of time. Thus, the Hub must COLLABORATE with the chains emerging around it, not merely to generate revenue but to offer a functional ecosystem at a lower cost. In my study, I refer to this concept as ‘State.’ Do you think a State makes immense profits? No, and yet they are the most crucial infrastructure in our modern society.
The consumer chains of ICS v1 are already specializing in this spirit of collaboration; Stride is already extracting value from the entire Cosmos with its liquid staking, and Neutron will likely offer services that extend beyond retail use, featuring products marked by Atom’s security. I could even go further by suggesting that CyclesMoney will enable debt clearing across the Cosmos ecosystem. And I haven’t even mentioned partial set security, which will increase the number of consumer chains significantly…
So, will Atom become a high-yield asset? I don’t think so. The Cosmos Hub’s mission is to build a fair system around its validator set and governance to enable ICS chains to offer the best specific services securely and without competing against each other. Atom, in all this, will be the army that protects its lands and will correspondingly be valued as far as they extend.