Cosmos Hub & Informal Systems

Conversation
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Informal Systems has been working on the Cosmos Hub for roughly 3 years. When we got started, it had no vision & no product and was crippled by technical debt. Today, the Hub is again the reference chain of the Interchain stack (i.e a first adopter of the new software releases), it has a strong and healthy engineering culture and launched the first crypto re-staking product in 2023.

With Forge & Hydro coming up, it is also starting to execute on a vision to become the best place to launch and scale a chain. But to go to the next level, the Cosmos Hub needs unified product leadership.

The Cosmos Hub needs unified leadership

The cold hard truth of business success is that consolidated and focused leadership is a lot more efficient than scattered leadership. This is particularly true in a nascent, highly competitive industry like ours. The Cosmos Hub needs a team that is able to set a vision, build a product, take it to market and iterate quickly. In practice, it means critical functions like marketing, business development, growth, sales, developer support & technical development all have to be placed under the leadership of a single authority with clearly-defined objectives.

The current Cosmos Hub set up is close to the opposite of that. Last year, Informal & Hypha put up a proposal that was focused on technical development, operations, and research. The AADAO is mandated to run an independent grant program. The two key organizations (ICF & AiB) that received an ATOM allocation in the 2019 genesis have chosen to step out or greatly cut back their involvement, distorting the core incentive structure. The uniquely decentralized context of the Hub has made it difficult to empower a team to really take charge. But consolidated focused leadership is needed more than ever.

We seriously considered stepping into the role by soliciting the community to approve some of the required changes. This would have meant consolidating Hub decision-making at Informal, building a proper marketing, business, & growth team, downsizing the grant program & re-focusing it around a small set of key objectives, updating governance rules and tokenomics, etc.

In the end, we decided against it. As a company, our aspiration is to double-down on our strengths. For us, that’s engineering, security, research and development. In other words, we believe another strong organization in the ecosystem needs to step up with more community support to bring the Hub’s product and business leadership to the next level. And while we remain available and excited to continue working on the Hub, it should be up to them to decide how Informal should be engaged, if at all.

A Plan For 2025

Over the past months, the Informal Hub team has been focused on moving the Hub into product mode with the upcoming launches of both Forge & Hydro. Forge delivers fully permissionless restaking, while Hydro capitalizes on protocol owned liquidity and further cements ATOM as the Interchain Capital. We’re excited to bring these new capabilities to the Hub community.

In parallel, we’ve been discussing with a number of other teams that would be able to take on a more unifying product leadership role. High quality teams have already shown interest (although there’s a preference not to be mentioned at this time).

We’ve also talked to the ICF about how it can better support the Hub and reunify leadership. @ebuchman has been an advocate of a Hub-aligned ICF during his tenure on the ICF’s Foundation Council. As progress is being made on that front, and as new FC members join, Ethan will move on from the ICF’s Foundation Council, as he announced in June.

No matter what’s in store for Hub leadership, Informal will continue to support Neutron, Stride and all new Forge & Hydro users for as long as it takes to implement the organizational changes that the Hub needs to thrive.

But for now, let’s get back to launching Hydro & Forge.

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Honestly, this is a lot of words that don’t say a lot, or at least not saying the intended message more directly. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, other than to state, more or less:

“Informal no longer wishes to be the full-service Hub maintainer. Someone please bid it so we don’t have to.”

The revolving door of uncertainty continues to spin.

I’m a little jaded at this point, I guess.

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The one line summary would be more like “we’ve identified teams that are in a better position than us and will support them if needed”

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I probably sounded salty there. I think it’s just after years of contributors dipping, it’s disappointing to see Informal stepping back, who I have personally been appreciative of for getting it moving in a more promising direction.

That said, I can see the logic. I’ve recently come around at the idea of a pseudo merger between AADAO and Informal’s functions, more coordination, etc. A more cohesive set of contributors is definitely needed. We all know how AADAO’s doing right now, so Informal stepping back at first glance is like “ahh, here we go again starting over from 0”.

Anyway, I am curious who steps forward and what their vision is. My guess is Binary and some combination of current contributors.

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Maybe just give it to the thorchain/jp squad. Looking at their execution style…they might know better what can be done with the hub.

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All the best to Informal and their endeavors moving forward, but this truly sounds like:

Since we have gathered, and (arguably) drained, all the “free money grab,” rather “funding,” needed from the community pool, it is time to go finish building our own separate, standalone castle. We could care less about ATOM! Dump on.

To inflict more damage to the remaining Cosmos Hub community, here to see ATOM succeed, there is no indication there will be support for ATOM value accrual as Informal steps down.

Regardless, all the best.

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lol, that’s a take too cynical even for me. They had an idea for hub improvement, got community approval and executed on the largest ideas in it.

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Work 10-hour days on the Hub.

You care.

Show up every day with positivity and good intentions.

The community shitting on you all the while.

Calling you and your team money grabbers. Scam artists.

Nothing will ever be enough.

Regardless, you and your team ship and ship and ship.

Things are stable for the first time ever on the Hub.

You feel proud.

You should.

You advocate for a new team because you know your strengths, and they’re not what’s needed for the next phase.

And this is the response you get.

Nice.

All the best @FHZ

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@Thyborg just a clarification: what role do you see Informal taking in the Cosmos development in the ideal future?

I can for sure advocate for Informal to continue building the SDK and the tools/infra around it, this is worthwhile and I appreciate greatly what you are guys are doing on a technical side.

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Did not state there was an absence of care nor to stray from embracing due pride with the accomplishments achieved thus far. It is indeed admirable to advocate for a new team and the Informal team deserves undeniable thanks for the work they put in.

What was stated, however, was the absence of any indicator accruing value back to ATOM after “authorized” draining, and I may add funneling funds to key (insider) teams, from the CP, followed by announcing Informal stepping down. By all means, developers must be paid, without a doubt! Dump on and continue shipping, however.

Despite my post not being intended to offend, will reiterate the sentiment of respecting the separate castle(s) being built.

All the best, indeed @btruax

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Thank you @freak12techno - Informal works on Comet & IBC and we plan to continue to do that for the foreseeable future

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what are you referring to? are you talking about 2.0? 2.0 was rejected by the community and instead of pivoting to something better, users watched as validators like informal continued to push the major ideas outlined in their failed proposal, effectively doing exactly what the astute observation’s of FHZ outlines.

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Oh here we go. Mr. Validator on the case. No, Jim, i’m not referring to 2.0. I’m referring to the features they mentioned in the mandate going in to this year, like partial set security.

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This quote succinctly captures several truths that we encourage the entire community to reflect on deeply. At Govmos, we consistently advocate for greater decentralization as it represents the core innovation brought forth by blockchain infrastructure. We see this as the inevitable endgame—decentralization that balances against an increasingly centralizing corporate world outside the blockchain realm. These are two opposing yet interconnected forces.

However, it is important to recognize that this duality should not be viewed in a strict binary sense, as there are countless shades of gray between the extremes. The Cosmos Hub, and by extension, the broader Cosmos Ecosystem, has historically taken a highly decentralized approach, often at the cost of coordinated development. While this has led to inefficiencies and criticisms, Cosmos has nonetheless persevered and delivered on the promises of the 2017 ICO—and even exceeded those expectations.

Today’s ecosystem is a collection of independent, decentralized products and hubs. The Cosmos Hub is fulfilling its role in delivering shared security as originally envisioned, Osmosis has established itself as a well-regarded liquidity hub, Celestia is solidifying its position as the leading data availability layer, and many smaller chains are emerging as future hubs in their own right.

It is critical to understand that the Cosmos Hub should not be the sole leader of the entire ecosystem. It is one hub, certainly the largest and most stable, but the Cosmos is much more than just shared security. We believe that it is time for historic organizations like the InterChain Foundation to step forward and craft a comprehensive product line for the Cosmos. This vision should encompass all existing decentralized hubs while fostering the creation of new ones through strategic funding and coordinated efforts that benefit the entire Cosmos Ecosystem—independent, decentralized, cooperative, and application-specific.

Thank you for reading,
Govmos.
pro-delegators-sign

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Thanks for your contribution guys!

Good luck on your upcoming journey
Thank ou

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and do you see that role explaining or not? to be fair, i think that its enough. i personally do not agree with dev teams taking on governance roles (i mean “over” participating) - it has always led to centralization of stake, power, etc

I think you guys do enough. Im unsure where the perception of Informal is crap came from.

Anyways, as a token holder, im more concerned for the orgs that have the money that belongs to the chain