# Cosmos Quarterly #2 Q3-26 - Hardening, Interop, and the Hub & Tokenomics Roadmap **URL:** \ **Category:** Hub Unit\ **Created:** [October 29, 2026, 5:26pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517 "2026-10-29T17:26:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![qxnico](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/qxnico/32/7846_2.png) [@qxnico](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/qxnico)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 5:26pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/1 "2026-10-29T17:26:20Z")
![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/2/250e3f9a01c8d8f95d87fb27fd239215c7a9c13b.jpeg) Hey folks! This is the second **Cosmos Quarterly** , and the first one in the format every edition will use from now on: the quarter’s news, pillar by pillar, and what each team is working on next. If you want the story of how Cosmos Labs is structured and why, that lives in [Quarterly #1](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-1-q2-26-three-pillars-three-teams/17200) and we won’t retell it here. The Thursday [Hub Weekly](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-21-october-22-2026/17498) continues as it is. **The short version of the quarter:** The tokenomics phase 2 is finished, the Hub roadmap passed validation, and both are preparing for a review process in governance, ATOM went live on Paxos, an institutional staking API is coming through InfStones, the USDC migration is past halfway, post-quantum keys shipped, the IBC release for EVM and Besu networks is weeks away, and the enterprise team took the tokenization suite to banks and to SWIFT’s ledger. **It was also a security-hardening quarter**. Two vulnerabilities in shared code and one governance attack on an ecosystem chain hit between August and September. The Hub responded to all three quickly and lost no funds. Since then, the team has published new security policies and expanded the security operations team, so the ecosystem is better covered for the long term. ## **At a glance, this quarter** **Ecosystem.** The tokenomics research is complete, and the Hub roadmap is validated enough to prepare for public review. Both go to governance in pieces from December, one proposal at a time; the process and timeline for each come out around November 20. 12.7 million USDC migrated, with the community pool’s own migration now on-chain. The team ran five Hub releases, three of them security updates. ATOM went live on Paxos, and an institutional staking API is coming via InfStones. **Open Source.** Two vulnerabilities in shared code were handled without loss on the Hub, and the security operations behind the stack were rebuilt around them: signed releases, strengthened security practices, AI-assisted triage and patching, verified patch distribution. Post-quantum consensus keys and key rotation shipped. The release that makes IBC deployable on any EVM network, and on Besu, is around the corner. **Enterprise.** The Cosmos Tokenization Suite now connects bank cores to SWIFT’s shared ledger. The team launched a 17-member Partner Network for institutional customers. The team demoed at conferences and trade shows and was on the ground at industry conferences. **Collaborations across all pillars.** Paxos, InfStones, SWIFT, Zeeve, and the Partner Network with +17 participants. **Structural.** Hub operations have been fully onboarded to CLK, and the ecosystem team also refreshed the Cosmos Hub’s documentation and is stabilizing relaying on the network. * * * ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/9/9ecea50d0c72e78d9c0248c79098753bf077ed78.png) ## **Ecosystem: ATOM tokenomics phase 2 is done; the roadmap shape is sound enough. Polishing, review, and governance are next** The ecosystem team has been hard at work on the roadmap and tokenomics workstreams, supporting as well security response processes and the USDC migration. ### **Tokenomics: Phase 2 is finished with clear action items. Next, governance.** Last quarter, Gauntlet’s Phase 1 measured how ATOM actually moves. This quarter, Phase 2 designed the responses, and both phases are complete. Phase 2 started from the Phase 1 finding that sell pressure comes from how quickly rewards become liquid and reach exchanges, not from the inflation rate itself, and set out to design three proposals: 1. An issuance rule that holds a defined security floor and can respond to revenue once Hub products earn it. 2. Staking incentives that reward longer-term staking over immediate liquidation. 3. A place for Hub revenue to go, so fees feed the reward lifecycle instead of having nowhere to land. These proposals address the main findings and move the Hub’s tokenomics toward a stronger staking asset with room for new products. If you followed the weeklies, you saw the last stretch: the past few weeks went into stress-testing the recommendations, checking whether exchanges, custodians, or other sophisticated players could game the proposed mechanisms, and reviewing how each one would be implemented. **That review process has concluded. Next: Public reviews & governance.** We are now drafting the report, with its associated proposals, as a tokenomics roadmap that we will take to governance for review, debate, and signaling: every issue the research surfaced, the full report attached, and the sequence for addressing them, with each change handled as its own proposal on its own timeline rather than one omnibus vote. How and when it goes to governance is in the section below, alongside the Hub roadmap: one post, one schedule, and a separate proposal for each proposed tokenomics change. The public tokenomics dashboard we promised in July is built on the Phase 1 data and is also already live, and you can take an [early look here](https://atom-tokenomics-dashboard.fly.dev/dashboard). ### **The Hub Roadmap: validation is complete; plan polishing and review come next** The last roadmap update was [Hub Weekly #18](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-18-october-1-2026/17397), on October 1. It set out the long-term vision, the product ideas that came out of validation, a possible order for building them, and the five things we still had to check: legal, technical, Hub safety, cost, and demand. We spent October checking them. The vision and findings from #18 held, with a few changes to what goes in each phase and in what order. We now know enough to turn those phases into a detailed, multi-year roadmap. Phase by phase, [what we shared in the last update](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-18-october-1-2026/17397) (Then) and what changed (Now): **Phase 1: prove the rail.** - Then: “rails first”, issuance and distribution over IBC. - Now: narrowed to one Hub-native asset, issued once on the Hub, reaching a connected chain as the same asset, with the Hub’s accounting holding. Existing connections only, hard limits, nothing touching consensus or the VM. The primitive it builds is canonical issuance and distribution. **Phase 2: the first Hub-built products.** - Then: a few indices at different risk levels. - Now: indices and curated baskets on the rail from Phase 1, which adds the curator framework (who can build a basket, under what methodology, for what fee), redemption flows, and cross-chain pricing and verification. The primitive is orchestration: holding and pricing positions across chains and paying through one token. **Phase 3: traditional-finance assets on the same rail.** - Then: tokenized stocks, funds, and bonds via specialised tokenizers, later institutions themselves. - Now: Unchanged in content, but validation fixed its place: it is the phase that needs the legal entity, so it comes third, and that entity work should start earlier to prepare the phase. The primitive is compliant issuance of regulated assets. **Phase 4: products that need both sides.** - Then and now: baskets of tokenized funds next to onchain yield, built by vetted curators, with a fee to the Hub. It needs the primitives from Phases 2 and 3 and adds little of its own, which is the point: by then the Hub is the place institutional products get distributed onchain. What validation found, and what changes it drove: - **Legal set the order.** A Hub-native asset needs no new legal vehicle; issuing regulated assets ourselves needs an entity that takes months to set up, and renting a tokenization platform is out because none supports the open, no-KYC access the thesis needs. So Phases 1 and 2 use on-chain assets that need nothing new, and progress doesn’t wait on lawyers. - **Test the rail first.** Multi-chain indices raise hard questions: how the Hub verifies assets on other chains, how it prices positions it doesn’t custody, which connections are ready. Phase 1 needs none of that. Issuance and distribution over IBC work today, so we prove the rail now and bring verification in when Phase 2 needs it. - **Where the Hub earns beyond issuing.** We evaluated how these assets and products create work for the Hub: relaying, cross-chain pricing and accounting, keeping routes clear. The validator set can run those services for a fee, which is new income for the active set and the first concrete answer to “where does Hub revenue come from” beyond issuance, yield, or index fees. The work now is turning what validation produced into the four phases in depth: scope, dependencies, and timeline for each, and that is the plan that goes to the forum and to governance. That will be the roadmap. The plan will be sequential by design. Each phase has one goal, builds one primitive the next phase needs, and has to prove it before the next phase starts. It is the same loop a product team runs: build the smallest thing that can prove the idea, prove it, then take the next step. When and how it goes to governance is in the section below. ### **Governance: the tokenomics & roadmap review schedule** The tokenomics findings and the Hub roadmap are getting ready for community review, and we are going to run them through governance on a schedule, one item at a time. **Around November 20,** we publish the process post. It will contain: - The schedule: a date for the review and discussion of each tokenomics step, and a date for the roadmap. - The tokenomics roadmap, broken down into its individual steps, with Gauntlet’s full report and the [dashboard](https://atom-tokenomics-dashboard.fly.dev/) attached. - A snapshot of the Hub roadmap: the phases, what each proves, and the order. A full roadmap will be published separately at a later date, in time for its discussion and review date. **From early December** we will walk through each review step in order, through December, past New Year and into January: the tokenomics steps first, in sequence, and the roadmap last, once the steps that prepare the Hub for it have been decided. Each item will follow the same process, at a minimum: - A forum thread, opened well ahead of any vote, with the proposal in full. - A monthly discussion and showcase: the item is presented and argued on the validator call and the community call, with the team on the call to answer. - Room to adjust: if the discussion changes the approach, the proposal changes before it goes on chain, and the timeline moves where it needs to. - Only then a proposal on chain, shaped by what came out of the discussion. Each step will be its own proposal and will stand on its own. This is not an all-or-nothing omnibus set of proposals: if one step is rejected, the rest can still pass, and meaningful change happens either way. We designed the steps so that is true. **The schedule is spread out on purpose**. There is a lot to get through, and one item at a time is easier to follow than everything at once. Thanksgiving and the end-of-year holidays fall inside these windows, so the schedule leaves room around them; nothing gets decided while half the ecosystem is away. Safe to say, we are very excited to share all of this! ### **USDC Migration: past the halfway mark, with the community pool next** The USDC migration has passed the halfway mark. We are updating timelines around the one-click migration tool: - **Status & Timeline:** Two-click migration shipped in September. One-click migration is waiting on an Injective chain upgrade (now scheduled for mid-November after security precautions following their September incident). - **How to Migrate Now:** Thanks to ~$1.5M in USDC.inj liquidity in Osmosis transmuter pools, zero-fee migrations remain available for most users. Migrate via [Skip:Go](https://go.skip.build/) or Keplr wallet using this [migration guide](https://docs.skip.build/go/app/usdc-n-manual-migration). - **Progress & Key Dates (per** [Hub Weekly #21](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-21-october-22-2026/17498)): As of Oct 16, **12.70M USDC migrated to Injective** , with 93.97M USDC.n remaining ecosystem-wide (mostly on dYdX). Circle stopped new Noble minting on Oct 13; CCTP V1 burn limits go to zero Oct 31; Noble contract pauses Jan 12, 2027. - **Community Pool Funds:** Voting is active on [Proposal 1060](https://www.mintscan.io/cosmos/proposals/1060) to migrate 566,067 USDC.n via a 4-of-6 community multisig using Skip:Go. Details and discussion are in the [forum post](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/migrate-community-pool-usdc-n-to-usdc-inj-via-a-community-multisig/17492). ### **Hub operations: five releases, three incidents, no funds lost** Cosmos Labs’ Korean subsidiary assumed Hub releases starting with v28.0 on September 2. The transition was immediately tested by several critical security events and updates that were handled successfully. - **v27.6:** Shipped in August to unblock Hydro’s migration. - **v28.1.0:** Emergency private binary mitigation for a CosmWasm vulnerability, deployed across 179 active validators. - **v28.2.0:** Full CosmWasm fix executed via an expedited 72-hour vote (Proposal 1055) on September 21. - **v28.3.0:** Restarted the Hub on September 23 following the Neutron governance exploit. - **v29 (v29.0.1):** Upgraded to SDK v0.53.8, removed the legacy params module, and applied a Go runtime security patch (Proposal 1059) on October 28. In response to these events, release processes were overhauled to require GPG-signed binaries, updated validator contact directories and refreshed documentation at [docs.cosmos.network/hub](https://docs.cosmos.network/hub/latest). Finally, the Neutron [recovery concluded with 1,227,121 ATOM returned to](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/discussion-move-the-1-227-121-atom-recovered-after-the-neutron-exploit-to-the-neutron-recovery-multisig/17385) Neutron’s recovery multisig following a governance vote, while [AADAO returned its ATOM LP](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/return-of-aadao-atom-lp-to-cosmos-hub-community-pool/17419) to the community pool. ### **ATOM integrations: Paxos is live, InfStones is next** **Paxos.** [Proposal 1054](https://www.mintscan.io/cosmos/proposals/1054) passed in September, and [ATOM is now a supported asset on Paxos Crypto Brokerage](https://docs.paxos.com/guides/developer/blockchains) for trading and custody, which means the fintechs and brokerages that embed Paxos can offer ATOM through an existing integration. The main deliverable is the integration, now done. The institutional staking integration outlined in the proposal as a follow-up is still under consideration, and we’re speaking with the Paxos team now about an approximate timeline and mechanism by which to activate it. As a next step, Paxos’s partner managers have begun circulating details on the listing to their partners, and the ecosystem team will begin sharing the listing details with brokerages, custodians, and exchanges that we want to see list ATOM. The public announcement of the integration on social media is planned for next week, and Paxos’s marketing team has begun planning a press release cycle. **InfStones.** An Ecosystem Growth delegation for an open-source, institutional-grade ATOM staking API, so custodians and brokerages can offer ATOM staking through channels they already run. The delegation is released in three tranches: one on signature, one on API delivery or a first closed institutional customer, and one on final delivery plus a closed customer, so receiving all of it requires bringing real stakers in. The terms are in [Hub Weekly #21](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-21-october-22-2026/17498), and the agreement has been finalized. We will share an announcement with InfStones soon. Two questions came back on the forum, and they deserve straight answers here: - These delegations are ICF ATOM, not community pool spend. We publish them so you can see their impact; the design of the delegations is decided by ICF. - There is no customer for this API yet, and usage is not guaranteed. When a customer signs, we will work with InfStones to provide information to the community, subject to what those partners allow. InfStones was chosen for its network of institutional partners. They are the best-positioned team we have spoken with to bring it. ### **Delegation program** The program has two tracks: default delegations, which any validator earns by meeting published performance criteria, and [Ecosystem Growth delegations](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/icf-ecosystem-growth-delegations-applications-now-open/16949), by application or targeted RFP. This quarter we moved the cadence to calendar quarters with fixed snapshot dates, so every round runs the same way at the same time, and we clarified in public how growth delegations stack with default ones. The Q3 round’s results were published for validators to check before anything moved on-chain; execution runs through the ICF’s custodians, with screening on every round, and the transaction hashes go up once it’s done. As of this day, custodians have executed delegations and the process is completed. A summary will be posted soon. As for the ICF’s growth delegation program, two targeted RFPs ran this quarter. - The **[PebbleDB snapshots RFP](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/targeted-rfp-cosmos-hub-pebbledb-snapshot-provider/17330)** was awarded to [Solva](https://solva.solutions/), providing a faster way to sync nodes, readily available. - The **[sponsored endpoint RFP](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/targeted-rfp-cosmos-hub-sponsored-endpoint-provider/17414)**, for the public RPC, API, and gRPC endpoints builders use, opened October 6 and closed October 28 with more than eighteen applications. We have finalized this RFP and will announce the awarded team in November. ### **Also on the Hub** [Stargaze Messages](https://x.com/StargazeZone/status/2105326040142983443) shipped on the Hub on September 30: private, encrypted wallet-to-wallet messaging, running as CosmWasm contracts on Hub infrastructure. A consumer feature on the Hub, built by a team that chose to deploy here. Similarly, Hydro has [announced](https://x.com/hydromarkets/status/2115086199631077463?s=20) plans to launch a new ATOM LST on the Cosmos Hub in collaboration with Moonkitt. This LST will have no protocol fee and will interact with Hydro’s inflow vaults on the Hub to create new DeFi opportunities for ATOM holders. ### **What we’re working on now** 1. The process post is for around November 20, and the first tokenomics proposals that follow it in December. 2. Phase 1 of the roadmap: technical scoping and a small closed test. 3. USDC: one-click when Injective ships, the community pool migration, and chasing the last USDC.n with validators and wallets. 4. The endpoint RFP award, the InfStones API build, and the next round of delegations. * * * ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/5/54658abac08b5d40a943b0424e7e337a8d1c728f.png) ## **Open Source: a quarter of hardening, and IBC for any EVM network** The Open Source (Foundations) team spent the quarter on two things: hardening security and incident response after the incidents, and accelerating IBC for EVM networks, because that is where the demand for IBC is coming from. ### **Security: two vulnerabilities, and what we changed because of them** Two vulnerabilities in code were disclosed this quarter. The third incident of the quarter, the governance attack on Neutron, was a Hub operations matter and is covered in the Ecosystem section above. - **Cosmos EVM, August.** A vulnerability in the Cosmos EVM module was discovered and actively exploited on six chains. Around forty chains were coordinated through the disclosure for safe upgrade. The team published a [post-mortem](https://github.com/cosmos/security/blob/main/communications/cosmos_evm_GHSA-7g4w-cg88-2cq2_post_mortem.md) detailing the finding, response, and the changes implemented to avoid scenarios like these in the future. - **CosmWasm, September.** [CWA-2026-006](https://github.com/CosmWasm/advisories/blob/main/CWAs/CWA-2026-006.md), a sandbox escape in the Wasmer compiler that wasmvm uses, which in practice meant a crafted contract could mint tokens, was reported. The Hub was remediated successfully. The patch was distributed via a private patching process to affected chains. - **On top of those:** the SDK shipped security patches in July (v0.53.8, v0.54.4) and v29 carries a Go runtime security fix. **What changed and improved in the security process as a result:** Due to the rise of AI-assisted attacks and bug-bounty reporting, we continued to strengthen our security practices this quarter as a main focus: - An expanded **security operations team** within the company to provide greater support for bug bounty triage, code hardening, and vulnerability remediation. - The bug bounty moved to [ImmuneFi](https://immunefi.com/bug-bounty/cosmos/information/), providing the team with additional capabilities to triage and coordinate with researchers. - Updated code of conduct and ImmuneFi program policies. [Read more here.](https://cosmos.network/blog/cosmos-security-update) - **A new security patching and distribution policy** to improve planning and coordination between the security team and users of the Cosmos stack. Teams using the Cosmos stack are encouraged to provide their contact information to [security@cosmoslabs.io](mailto:security@cosmoslabs.io) to be added to the private security contact lists. - **Signed releases** on every Hub binary, to ensure the source of code and binaries. To support these initiatives, the ICF has also set up a **[$3M discretionary security grant program](https://medium.com/@interchain-io/the-interchain-foundation-is-rolling-out-a-3m-discretionary-security-grant-program-39bab237cef3)** for incident recovery, hardening, monitoring, and contributions to shared ecosystem security. ### **Interoperability: IBC for any EVM network, and for Besu** While IBC v2 brought native interop to Ethereum, the team is working on extending that connectivity to any EVM-compatible environment, from public L2s to Hyperledger Besu. These networks are where institutions and L2s are asking us for interoperability, which is why it took priority above other options. Hyperledger Besu does not have a de facto interoperability standard, and the new updates to IBC will provide Besu-based ledgers with these much-needed features. In July, we said an IBC integration took nine or more manual transactions and that we were collapsing it into a single step. We fulfilled that promise by rebuilding the entire experience around one unified tool: the **IBC CLI**. A single binary now runs the relayer and attestor, deploys contracts, connects counterparties, and handles packet recovery. **Testing & Coverage:** - **Public EVM & Besu Testnets:** Connected a local Besu network to 14 public testnets (including Ethereum Sepolia, Base, Arbitrum, OP, Linea, zkSync Era, Unichain, Celo, Avalanche Fuji, Hedera, XRPL EVM, and partner testnets) using the CLI alone. - **Two-Way Token Transfers:** Proven burn-and-mint flows across pairs without wrapped copies or middle bridges (in a demo setup with one attestor per chain). **Release Readiness:** - **Core Features Built:** Auto-relaying with missed-packet recovery, on-chain transfer rate limits, and documented runbooks for contract upgrades, pausing, and relayer and attestor rotation. **Final Stretch:** The team is finalizing the Besu light client, conducting final tests and security audits before shipping the verified CLI releases. What it unlocks: - **Any EVM network to any other** , L2s included, with no Cosmos chain in the middle. - **Any EVM network to Cosmos.** This was already possible (the Hub has run IBC to Ethereum since April); the release makes it a CLI setup instead of a bespoke integration. - **Besu to any EVM network** , with Besu state verified directly by its own consensus (QBFT and IBFT 2.0) instead of attestors, which is what a bank or a consortium needs before it will trust a connection. - **Assets that stay the same asset** : burned on the source chain, minted on the destination, no wrapped copies and no bridge in the middle. - **Guardrails** : rate limits on transfers, restricted registration of new clients and apps, auto-relay that recovers missed packets, and the ability to pause transfers, the router, and light clients during an incident. **Solana.** The IBC programs for Solana are substantially complete in the open[cosmos/ibc-contracts](https://github.com/cosmos/ibc-contracts/tree/main/ibc-solana) repo. What remains to take them to production (relayer support for Solana’s RPC model, a packet-sequence design that works with auto-relay, and a fresh audit) is scoped in[cosmos/ibc#1569](https://github.com/cosmos/ibc/issues/1569) and is not part of this release. Besu came first because that is where the demand is. Solana will follow when we have a use-case lined up; that could be the Cosmos Hub. If you have a concrete use case for IBC on Solana and want to help take it to production, talk to us. ### **Cosmos SDK and CometBFT: Post-quantum support** The July release we promised landed on July 28: [Cosmos SDK v0.55.0](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/releases/tag/v0.55.0) and CometBFT v0.40 bring post-quantum consensus key types (ML-DSA) and zero-downtime validator key rotation, with Cosmos KMS as the recommended remote signer, and [PoA v1.1.0](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/releases/tag/enterprise/poa/v1.1.0) carries the same to permissioned chains. Read more on the blog: [Post-Quantum Ledger Security 2026.1](https://cosmos.network/blog/post-quantum-ledger-security-20261). ### **What the team is working on now** - Shipping the IBC release for EVM and Besu networks once internal audits are through, and the versioned CLI releases after it. - Providing the monthly patch under the updated security patching policy, and extending the automated patching pipeline from Cosmos EVM to the SDK and CometBFT while working down the report backlog. - Light clients from contributors, and research spikes on consensus clients. - The ibc-go release that carries SDK v0.55, so chains, the Hub included, can move to v30. * * * ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/6/60f84f0179ecaff16998aeaa24c974656ea0c32c.png) ## **Enterprise: the tokenization suite in front of banks** The enterprise pillar has been focused on expanding the reach of Cosmos’ Tokenization Suite and related offerings. ### **Swift’s ledger** On September 28, we [announced](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cosmos-provides-connectivity-to-help-banks-participate-in-swifts-ledger-for-247-cross-border-payments-302891523.html) that the Cosmos Tokenization Suite gives banks connectivity to SWIFT’s blockchain-based shared ledger, an EVM and Hyperledger Besu environment, for 24/7 cross-border payments. For a bank, that means standing up its own tokenized deposit ledger, keeping it in sync with the core it already runs, like Fiserv, FIS, or Jack Henry, and connecting it to networks like SWIFT’s ledger, Canton, Partior, Ethereum, and Solana through one integration rather than one per network. Ledger Insights and Finextra covered it. ### **The Partner Network** On September 9, we launched the [Cosmos Partner Network](https://cosmos.network/blog/cosmos-partner-network-accelerates-digital-asset-initiatives): seventeen vetted providers across custody, compliance, security, infrastructure and systems integration that banks can draw on around the tokenization suite. Anseta, Balance, BCW Group, BitGo, [Blockchain.com](http://Blockchain.com), Blockdaemon, Coinbax, DFNS, Galaxy Digital, Hypernative, InfStones, OpenZeppelin, Peersyst, Silence Laboratories, Ubyx, Utila and Zeeve, with a directory at [cosmos.network/partners](https://cosmos.network/partners). ### **On stage and at the booth, events** Last quarter, this team spent its time in payments and banking rooms rather than crypto conferences. Highlights from events this quarter include: - **FinovateFall (New York, Sep 10):** The team demoed programmable cash sweeps on the tokenization suite live on stage, on a Jack Henry core; watch on [our YouTube](https://youtu.be/w6J3MagI14Y). - **Sibos (Miami, Sep 28 – Oct 1):** The team was present on the floor and Barry gave a booth talk on making tokenization work across ledgers; the [takeaways are on the blog](https://cosmos.network/blog/tokenized-deposits-and-interoperability). - **Jack Henry Connect (Kansas City):** The team had a booth on the show floor, demonstrating Cosmos Tokenization Suite’s native integration with Jack Henry cores. - **LF Decentralized Trust Privacy Workshop (New York):** Eran joined a panel discussion. That is the start of an education track for banks early in their digital-asset path, and there will be more of these sessions. ### **Other updates from the team** The blog saw a lot of content highlights this quarter: - [Coinbax on adopting ledger infrastructure without inheriting digital-asset risk](https://cosmos.network/blog/cosmos-coinbax-on-adopting-digital-ledger-infrastructure) - [Where controls belong in tokenized banking](https://cosmos.network/blog/where-controls-belong-in-tokenized-banking) - [Anseta’s footprint in the ecosystem](https://cosmos.network/blog/anseta-infrastructure-footprint-in-the-cosmos-ecosystem) - [Hypernative on institutional cybersecurit](https://cosmos.network/blog/institutional-cybersecurity-evolving-with-digital-asset-infrastructure)y - [High-yield corporate checking through tokenization](https://cosmos.network/blog/high-yield-corporate-checking-through-tokenization) - Barry’s [op-ed on](https://cosmos.network/blog/interoperability-biggest-challenge-and-opportunity)interoperability - In August, Wells Fargo [announced tokenized deposits for corporate and commercial clients](https://newsroom.wf.com/news-releases/news-details/2026/Wells-Fargo-to-Launch-Tokenized-Deposits-for-Corporate-and-Commercial-Clients/), and as [our co-CEO noted publicly](https://x.com/0xMagmar/status/2085066020406886488), their ledger is built on Cosmos technology. - Cosmos also [joined LF Decentralized Trust](https://www.lfdecentralizedtrust.org/announcements/lf-decentralized-trust-adds-swift-wells-fargo-and-13-additional-new-members) as a member in September. ### **What the team is working on now** - Expanding bank integrations beyond Fiserv and Jack Henry. * * * ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/c/c641eb8923045cf19241ad5b14755fd6647a27d9.png) ## **Partnerships, recap:** We’ve mentioned several partnerships in this post so far; for the recap: - **Paxos** : ATOM on their brokerage - **InfStones** : Institutional staking API - **Solva** : PebbleDB snapshots - **Gauntlet** : Tokenomics research - **Range** : Screening and delegation data - **Partner Network** : 17-member ecosystem (including Anseta, Balance, BCW Group, BitGo, [Blockchain.com](http://Blockchain.com), Blockdaemon, Coinbax, DFNS, Galaxy Digital, Hypernative, InfStones, OpenZeppelin, Peersyst, Silence Laboratories, Ubyx, Utila, and Zeeve. * * * ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/1/1c9bf1fcf0484cc43eeedfe50071a2c12e8f15f2.png) # **Wrapping up, the community call, and how to plug in** ## **Our last community call** The ICF joined us on the [October 15 community call](https://x.com/cosmoshub/status/2110599013108162689?a=kW9hy0rUkOumxKvgLmg&s=20) and took the questions aimed at them that we collected in July. The next validator call is November 11 at 9:00 ET; the [October recap](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-hub-validator-call-recap-oct-14-2026/17458) is on the forum. ## **Commitments from the last Quarterly** In [Quarterly #1](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-1-q2-26-three-pillars-three-teams/17200) we listed some commitments from the July call. Where each one stands: 1. **Launch this Quarterly series.** Done. This is the second one, and the [Hub Weekly](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-21-october-22-2026/17498) ran every Thursday in between. 2. **Cover the questions aimed at the ICF on a community call with them.** [Done](https://x.com/cosmoshub/status/2110599013108162689?a=kW9hy0rUkOumxKvgLmg&s=20), October 15. 3. **Build a Cosmos Hub ecosystem page.** Still to come. The Hub docs are now owned by the ecosystem team; the page is next. 4. **Build a public tokenomics dashboard.** [Built and ready](https://atom-tokenomics-dashboard.fly.dev/dashboard)! ## **How to plug in** There is a lot coming up, and most of it works better with you in it. Where to jump in, depending on who you are: - **On governance and roadmaps.** The process post lands around November 20, and the first review starts in early December. Read it, argue with it on the forum, bring it to the validator call, and vote. Each step stands on its own, so you can weigh in on one without waiting for the rest. - **If you run a validator.** The endpoint RFP award comes in November, with more targeted RFPs after it. The monthly validator call is the second Wednesday; that is where the delegation program and the upcoming proposals will get discussed first. - **If you build.** Got news for the Thursday Hub Weekly? Send it to @RoboMcGobo. If you run an EVM or Besu network and want to try the IBC release, or you have a real use case for IBC on Solana, we want to hear from you. - **If you run nodes.** Send your validator name, operator address, and an operations contact to [nodes@cosmoslabs.io](mailto:nodes@cosmoslabs.io), and you’ll get upgrade notices directly. That’s the quarter. Follow the weekly, argue with the roadmap, and see you on the forum. Until next time! [Follow the Hub on X](https://x.com/cosmoshub) · Join the validator calls · [Register for the community calendar](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0?cid=Y19iNmMwZWJjOGNlYWMzNzFmMTFmOTQ3NDEwODFkY2IwNzhlOGVmOTVhODk1MTdlNjhhZGQyZTMyMzE0NTExNmNjQGdyb3VwLmNhbGVuZGFyLmdvb2dsZS5jb20) ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 7:19pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/2 "2026-10-29T19:19:54Z")
- How’s the tokenomics Phase 2 and road map finished when the community is not seeing a single bit of it? If Gauntlet produced the report long ago already, why wait for another month to post it? - Why does it take forever for a roadmap? The roadmap was due the beginning of THIS year. You delayed it for no reason in the beginning of this year, delayed it for the paid trip to Korea, delayed it for the security incidents, and now you are delaying it even more because holidays are coming up. Is this a joke? - The ICF call addressed none of the community questions and instead gave a useless education on bureaucracy and legality. The community is clearly unsatisfied at the content. Why are you turning a blind eye and calling that done? - The whole quarterly report reeks of AI. Why is ATOM never a priority? Other projects get things done at crypto speed while you are doing things more slowly than the slowest traditional bureaucracy. ATOM price continues to hit ATL and liquidity is shrinking day by day as you sit back and drag your feet along not yet proposing a “multi-year roadmap”. Are you serious? Are you intentionally killing ATOM? ---
**Author:** ![qxnico](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/qxnico/32/7846_2.png) [@qxnico](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/qxnico)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 10:42pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/4 "2026-10-29T22:42:51Z")
Hey @ATOM-Renaissance! Hope all is well. I understand where you come from. Mostly, from a long-term perspective. However, I will respond to the commitments we made as team in the last months We are in a very exciting place. A couple of months later after forming the Ecosystem team, we have gone through the phases for both tokenomics/roadmap and managed to go through a lot more with a newly formed team (USDC, security upgrades, ATOM integrations, etc.). A few months ago we committed to a process with the community for how we’d build this, and you’re free to disagree with it. We’ve since gone through ideation and problem exploration, and talked through on the validator and community calls which angles resonated most. Now we’re reaching the end of it. That’s thanks to folks who engaged, reached out, and chatted with us, throwing in the hat. Getting to the stage we are at, my main ask for folks is: Look at the proposals and ideas, and dive into the weeds with us. You can batter your head against the process, or you can help, as many have. It’s going to be a unique shot to participate in these reviews, and we can’t wait to finally get to these props up. Godspeed to that. * * * **To answer your first points directly:** - Both tokenomics and the roadmap are “done” in the sense that we validated the proposed tokenomics mechanisms enough, and validated the design of the phases enough to develop them fully under the thesis we’ve shared. So that’s what we’ll do, and we’ll share them under the process we outlined above. - Gauntlet’s report was a set of recommendations that had to be iterated on a lot, so we’re putting it into report form and creating the proposals that go with it. We flagged around November 20 as a tentative date, because it needs polish and internal and legal review before we post it. That’s the reality of the process we have to deal with. The post also has updates on other areas you’ve been asking for more info on (such as IBC); hope those updates are helpful too. * * * ### The process we committed to, and how it got us here > [@ATOM-Renaissance](#): > > - Why does it take forever for a roadmap? The roadmap was due the beginning of THIS year. This team started this process six months ago, in commitments we agreed with the community on May. Since we changed our comms approach to weeklies, you can track all of the progress and everything we’ve shared with the community along the way, including all roadmap or tokenomics updates. We’ve been sharing updates on both tokenomics and roadmap ideas there. In May we made a reset: Cosmos had been mostly focused on enterprise work, and the Hub needed its own team and its own process. In [From Chaos to Stability to Growth](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/from-chaos-to-stability-to-growth-the-plan-to-build-the-cosmos-hub-roadmap-in-public/16937), written after hearing from 80+ folks, we committed to three things: a team dedicated to the Hub, a build-in-public roadmap with weekly updates, and a deep study of ATOM’s tokenomics. Every step since has been shared publicly: - **June 4:** we acquired Mintscan and formed Cosmos Labs Korea, 15+ people working only on the ecosystem ([#4](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-4-june-05-2026/17023)). - **July:** we shared the first research areas, RWAs and interoperability, on the [July 1 call](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-hub-monthly-community-call-july-1-2026-recap/17113), and published tokenomics Phase 1 [in full](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/atom-tokenomics-phase-1-outcomes/17146). On July 22 we laid out how we’d pick a direction: map what the Hub has, find the real problems, then design and test solutions in public ([#11](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-11-july-23-2026/17185), [Quarterly #1](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-1-q2-26-three-pillars-three-teams/17200)). We also announced the Korea week ahead of time. Half the team is based there, and it was where we’d pitch ideas live and make the call. - **August 13:** three ideas went in and one came out: the Hub as the link between traditional and onchain finance ([#12](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-12-august-13-2026/17241)). We moved to validation, checking the product ideas legally and technically, with end of September as a tentative target. - **September:** we flagged the date would move ([#16](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-16-september-17-2026/17331)). The same team was handling the accelerated USDC migration, urgent security upgrades, and the Neutron response. Still, we shared the updates we had. - **October:** the product ideas and the vision were published for input ([#18](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-18-october-1-2026/17397)), and the tokenomics recommendations were stress-tested and the review closed ([#19](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-19-october-8-2026/17420), [#20](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/hub-weekly-update-20-october-15-2026/17464)). That’s where this post picks up. Both workstreams have reached the point where what’s left is writing them up properly and putting them in front of you. It’s been a lot of work, much of it beyond the roadmap and tokenomics, and most of it is in the post above. We’ve been taking the process as promised, step by step, knowing we need to get there with something sound, worth everyone’s effort. * * * To pick up your other Q’s: #### **On why we handle these one proposal at a time** We don’t want this to be another 2.0: one huge package, everyone rushed to review it all at once, and the good ideas sank with the bad. We said on the calls we’d do the opposite. Each change gets its own thread, its own discussion on the calls, and its own vote. We work around any dates, like holidays, so that folks can actually participate in these important steps. #### On the ICF call We did cover the grand majority of questions submitted in forms. In fact, the questions came only from there. It covered: how the ICF operates, how it works with Labs, the new council, that it no longer sells ATOM, and how the treasury is used. You can listen to it [here](https://x.com/cosmoshub/status/2110599013108162689). The majority of questions were around bureaucracy and how the ICF works. That’s where most folks have confusion about what it can/can’t do, and what mandate/mission it has as a foundation. **On priorities** These things we shared today, among many other, are important to the Hub and ATOM: it’s security, above all; ensuring it has good brokerage distributions as an asset and that staking can get more demand (Paxos, Infstones, etc…); getting it ready for MiCA in 2027 so exchanges continue to list it; refining the delegation program to get the network’s metrics to a healthier state. There is a lot of ground to cover, but fortunately the community and validators are there chipping in as new challenges or opportunities appear. * * * **Let me wrap things up for folks:** This is the stretch where input changes the outcome most. When the November 20 post lands, read it, pick the steps you care about, and tell us what you’d change and why. If you disagree with a proposal, that’s exactly where to say it, on the forum and in the vote. @ATOM-Renaissance, that goes for you too. I won’t keep relitigating dates and processes here every week, but if I expect you to bring the same energy to the proposals, your input will be welcome as always, we know that you care. See you in those threads! ⚛ ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 11:06pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/5 "2026-10-29T23:06:47Z")
We appreciate the reply but do you agree the process is extremely slow? We heard the exact same words about tokenomics revamp, “not another 2.0” exactly one year ago, with the promise of getting it done through governance by the end of Q1 this year per Magmar and Robo. With how slowly things are progressing we are not even sure anything will be done by the end of Q1 next year. You might have forgotten about all the promises but we ATOM holders have memory. We are certainly not the only ones feeling the same way, and words like “the timeline is what it is” feel extremely arrogant and do not help at all. As ATOM continue to hit ATL, get delisted from many places, and liquidity visibly shrinking day by day. By the time the process is done there is a real risk of ATOM literally going to 0. By the time the proposals come online there will not be much of a community left. Is there no sense of urgency at the ICF / CL at all, seeing the treasury vaporize as you work like a sloth? ---
**Author:** ![RoboMcGobo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/robomcgobo/32/5444_2.png) [@RoboMcGobo](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/RoboMcGobo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 12:02am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/6 "2026-10-30T00:02:02Z")
> [@ATOM-Renaissance](#): > > We heard the exact same words about tokenomics revamp, “not another 2.0” exactly one year ago, with the promise of getting it done through governance by the end of Q1 this year per Magmar and Robo For my part in trying to commit to timelines on tokenomics, obviously the timeline didn’t work out the way that I hoped it would. I was wrong. There’s not much I can do about that, and there’s not a whole lot that continuing to dwell on it can do for any of us either. We do our best to give accurate timelines so people aren’t kept in the dark as to what we’re working on, but sometimes things outside of our control mean that those timelines don’t work out. When we first learned that the timeline would likely slip, we always made sure to keep people updated. Getting the ecosystem to a place of relative stability has taken a lot of time and effort that delayed tokenomics and a lot of other things. Bear in mind, while most crypto projects can ship quickly because all they have to manage are a few sets of smart contracts, Cosmos contributors have to maintain multiple entire open-source SDK libraries and, by extension, nearly all of the chains that rely on them. We’re responsible for stewarding the Hub, all of the ecosystem’s public goods that process 8-9 figures in annual volume (USDC migration, Skip:Go, IBC itself, etc etc), coordinating critical security updates across dozens if not hundreds of chains and operators, and trying to push new commercial usecases of Cosmos technology to institutions and banks. The scale of the work that we do may not be immediately apparent to you, but it’s the work that keeps what you perceive to be a bad situation from being much worse. The mintscan acquisition and splitting the CL team into the 3-pillar structure helped a lot. We’ve been able to move far more quickly since, and it’s only because of those things that we were able to get tokenomics completed in October. But of course once we finally got the mintscan team onboard the ecosystem got hit with an ever-increasing number of security incidents (which is a problem the entire crypto space is facing, not just Cosmos - Binance just got hacked for 5 billion dollars an hour ago). So when you say this: > [@ATOM-Renaissance](#): > > - You delayed it for no reason in the beginning of this year, delayed it for the paid trip to Korea, delayed it for the security incidents, We didn’t delay for “no reason” of course, as I mentioned above, but otherwise this resonates with me a lot. We share your frustration that things outside of our control have meant we don’t progress at the pace that we’d like. But as Nico said, we’re in a really exciting place now. Tokenomics done, roadmap direction validated, and a governance cycle that will ask the community to align behind shipping it all, coming over the next few months. There’s nothing at all to be gained from negativity and complaining online. It does nothing to change the past and it can’t make us move faster in the future (as I said, we couldn’t if we wanted to, and we very much do!). But one thing that **is** helpful is forward-looking engagement and offering constructive feedback and suggestions on what we can do from here. If you have ideas and suggestions, I’d love to hear them. ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/7 "2026-10-30T00:30:52Z")
I appreciate all the excuses but those actually prove THE point the community has been reiterating - ATOM utility, tokenomics and value seem very low on the list of priorities, and even with the Mintscan team acquisition we are not seeing things moving nearly as fast as we want. It still seems very much like everything else takes priority before focusing on ATOM, and the supposed tokenomics revamp has been dragged on as if it were just a delay tactic. If ATOM truly was a priority you would not have been able to come up with such a long list of excuses. When the community welcomed CL it was all about making ATOM great again, and we’ve yet to see anything substantial to that commitment. Not to discredit the work but the deliverables simply aren’t there yet. And the proposed timeline in this quarterly is still unreasonably long. Seriously? Holdiay season usually sees crypto doing well and somehow it becomes an excuse to slack off and postpone the work further? While leadership from other projects constantly and proudly promote their own token, where is any of that from Barry or Magmar now? Where’s any of that from the ICF? Don’t bring up legality as it’s just lame at this point and other projects are doing it totally fine. Will this sad status quo ever change? ---
**Author:** ![RoboMcGobo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/robomcgobo/32/5444_2.png) [@RoboMcGobo](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/RoboMcGobo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 1:22am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/8 "2026-10-30T01:22:45Z")
Everything on the list of things i shared above, without exception, is needed for ATOM to succeed. To give just one example, one of the security incidents that you don’t feel should’ve been a priority would have allowed an attacker to mint unlimited ATOM and sell it to zero on exchanges. Is it your view that ATOM could have been successful without addressing that? What you’re proposing would be like building a house on a wooden foundation that also happens to be on fire 😅 We’ve had to spend time to put the fire out, and now we’re building the house. If you truly care about helping ATOM succeed, please feel free to pick up a hammer and help us build by providing some constructive solutions rather than unproductive problem statements. Thanks as always for your comment 😁 ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 1:44am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/9 "2026-10-30T01:44:36Z")
It was our understanding that the entirety of 2025 was about putting out the fire throughout Cosmos already, or more accurately shrinking the Cosmos ecosystem so much that the team doesn’t have so much stuff to worry about besides the Hub itself. With not much of an ecosystem left in 2026 we are surprised that the team has still not focused on the Hub as much as we want. The infinite mint incident would not have happened if the team looked into the bug reports a little closer. Also we didn’t say the responses to the security incidents weren’t adequate. We are talking about a delay of almost an entire year and that certainly cannot be excused by the security incidents alone. We very much like to rebuild the house and we are actually doing it actively with vATOM and other upcoming products. For this particular issue on ATOM tokenomics revamp and roadmap, we’d like to pick up the hammer way sooner than the proposed Nov 20, December, next year etc. timeline. Will the Hub team move faster to give us a chance? ---
**Author:** ![Guinch\_Roze](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/guinch_roze/32/9500_2.png) [@Guinch\_Roze](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/Guinch_Roze)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 7:44am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/10 "2026-10-30T07:44:17Z")
I understand the frustration from ATOM holders in this thread, and I share most of it. The work in this report is real, but a lot of it benefits the Cosmos stack in general, not the Hub or ATOM. Here is what the Hub community keeps asking for, as plainly as I can put it: 1. IBC to L2s and Solana, from the Hub. IBC between EVM networks “with no Cosmos chain in the middle” is great for IBC as a standard, but it routes value around the Hub. Solana is waiting for a use case: the Hub is that use case. Make the Hub the default route. 2. DeFi on the Hub needs building blocks first. We want DeFi apps on the Hub, but key primitives are still missing (a native price oracle, for example). Builders won’t come until those exist. 3. Decentralization is a meme right now. Just look at the Nakamoto coefficient. Staking incentives are being redesigned anyway in the tokenomics work, so this is the moment to add mechanisms that push it up, like the Nakamoto bonus I’ve argued for. 4. Osmosis. The Osmosis initiative should never have been frozen. If it had flaws, the team should have reworked it and brought it back properly instead of shelving it. 5. A real Hub showcase. Something like Injective’s hub: one place to find every app, LST, vault, route and proposal on the Hub. The ecosystem page is still “to come” in this report. It should be a priority, not a footnote. 6. Monetize everything in ATOM. Skip:Go, Connect, relaying, the IBC tooling: every product the team runs should accrue value to ATOM. 7. A place to build together. Devs, builders and holders need a shared space to coordinate on common projects, not just updates to read. 8. Shorter deadlines. The roadmap was “expected” at the start of 2026. Spreading the review over December and January pushes things back again. Ship smaller pieces, faster. 9. Focus: 75% Hub. Around 75% of the team’s effort on the Hub, the rest on the other pillars. Right now it feels like the reverse. The core question: How does it make sense for the ICF to fund IBC between L2s if ATOM captures nothing from it? That is working for free for everyone else. Every piece of interop the ICF builds should have a path that brings value back to the Hub. Guinch is committed to trying to build with the community, but it’s hard given the lack of momentum between the community and the team leads. That gap needs to close. ![1000028739](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/uploads/cosmos1/original/2X/0/0f0574a43cee66a4f08df076dfca192f8ffca269.jpeg) This is exactly what the Hub community has been shouting for months. I’m happy to help on any of these points, but we need to see the Hub treated as the priority, not as one pillar among three. ---
**Author:** ![Tristian\_Tapfield](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/tristian_tapfield/32/8853_2.png) [@Tristian\_Tapfield](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/Tristian_Tapfield)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:32pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/11 "2026-10-30T15:32:01Z")
Is anyone happy with actual progress or still salty on a few exaggerated estimates, the direction is obvious and crucial to stay relevant in the new financial system. Everyone has to make compromises even legacy banks, with the market moving towards modular design, compliance and the regulatory need for neutral routing, the work being done now will position cosmos at the top of those lists. Congratulations to the team for building a path out of the chaos! ---
**Author:** ![Cygne](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/cygne/32/8643_2.png) [@Cygne](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/Cygne)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 3:36pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/12 "2026-10-30T15:36:42Z")
I think The Guinch summed up very well what the community is expecting. ---
**Author:** ![RoboMcGobo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/robomcgobo/32/5444_2.png) [@RoboMcGobo](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/RoboMcGobo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 7:24pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/13 "2026-10-30T19:24:08Z")
Hey Guinch! Thank you so much for these constructive suggestions. I’m glad to see someone making suggestions that give us an actual starting point for constructive debate. IBC to Solana, pricing oracles, Dexes, etc are all things we’ve discussed in the past and are things that could be good additions to the Hub. Some of them (e.g., IBC routing and oracles) will end up being important for the roadmap products so I can almost guarantee they will come to the Hub, but as far as prioritizing these and building them now instead of later, i’d love to hear your answer to this question: **What do you believe all of these things are for? What’s your goal in building them now? How does the Hub benefit from building these things right now?** If the answer is “to bring builders to the Hub,” that’s not an adequate plan on its own. Let me tell you a little story about permissionless Cosmwasm: Over a year ago the Hub passed the proposal to bring permissionless CosmWasm to the Hub, with the same stated goal: “enable the primitives, builders will come” They didn’t. Over a year later only 2 apps have seen any meaningful adoption on the Hub: Stargaze (which required a governance proposal anyway for funding), and Hydro. Both of these apps are from Cosmos veterans that already had a great deal of Hub alignment, no external builders from other ecosystems materialized at all. Now let’s look at what it cost: - Millions of dollars in community and ICF funding - One of the worst vulnerabilities in Cosmos history impacted the Cosmos Hub, risking an infinite mint of ATOM and the complete collapse of the Hub - Countless hours of contributor time that could have been spent on ATOM wasted on CosmWasm maintenance and security (Cosmwasm is a huge reason we’re facing these delays now) What I’m trying to illustrate is this: Building new primitives on the Hub has a real cost, both financially and in terms of time. Sometimes (in the case of security) that cost has a risk of becoming existential. So when we propose to build primitives on the Hub, it should be in furtherance of a broader cohesive vision for what the Hub will do. That’s what we’re hoping this roadmap discussion can act as a conduit for. A broad vision that product growth can come out of. This way we can tie products back to things that concretely advance the Hub’s goals and make ATOM succeed, rather than just build things on the Hub and hope that a builder comes along to use it. We’re looking at adjusting the process based on the feedback given in this thread to find a better way to help facilitate that. That’s why we think this process (despite taking some time) is pretty worthwhile to do. In the case of CosmWasm, building a primitive on the Hub without a vision for what that primitive was for caused much more harm than good. I’m hoping we can avoid making the same mistake here. ---
**Author:** ![TRAVE](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/trave/32/9010_2.png) [@TRAVE](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/TRAVE)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 7:48pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/14 "2026-10-30T19:48:19Z")
From a capital allocation and risk management perspective, the economic framework outlined in Cosmos Quarterly #2 asks stakers to absorb maximum downside risk under the guise of “sustainability.” Before this roadmap translates into an on-chain parameter change, the Hub Unit and Gauntlet must address these core issues: **1. A guaranteed 50% cash-flow slash in exchange for pure economic speculation** Cutting gross staking APR from ~19.8% to under 10% halves daily token generation overnight. Blockchain code can strictly enforce a 50% yield reduction at a target block height, but **code cannot force the open market to double the price of ATOM**. Asking delegators to accept an irreversible 50% pay cut based on theoretical models of future price appreciation is an unacceptable risk asymmetry. **2. Remember Proposal 82 (ATOM 2.0): The community has used “No with Veto” before** Proponents should not forget the precedent set in late 2022. When core teams attempted to push through the _ATOM 2.0_ whitepaper—forcing a top-down overhaul of tokenomics, treasury issuance, and staking mechanics—the community mobilized to cast **over 37.3% NoWithVeto** , rejecting the proposal and burning the deposit. The Hub has a proven history of utilizing its veto power against economic experiments that disregard stakers’ alignment. Attempting to force another unhedged yield cut will trigger that exact same immune response. **3. We already ran the inflation-cut experiment with Prop 848—and it failed** The core thesis presented by Gauntlet (“cutting inflation eliminates sell pressure and lifts token price”) is not new. In late 2023, the Hub passed **Proposal 848** , slashing maximum inflation from 20% to 10% with that identical promise. The token generation cut was immediate; the price appreciation never materialized, and ATOM continued to bleed against both crypto benchmarks and fiat. Repeating the exact same failed monetary experiment while expecting a different outcome is not sound economics. **4. Trading 21-day liquidity for 365-day lockups just to break even** Under the “duration-tiered multipliers” concept, a staker is expected to lock principal for up to 12 months simply to reach today’s baseline return. In an asset class defined by extreme drawdowns and regulatory shifts, locking capital for a year eliminates the ability to rebalance, manage tax liabilities, or hedge. Imposing a 17x increase in illiquidity risk (365 days vs. 21 days) merely to match the yield we currently generate with full sovereign flexibility is fundamentally flawed mechanism design. **5. “Real Yield” does not cover a 10% deficit—it barely delivers 0.8%** Pitching IBC routing fees, DEX activity, and consumer chain fees as a replacement for protocol emission ignores basic arithmetic. With ~275 million ATOM staked, even if the Hub were to achieve an optimistic $3.5M to $4.0M in net annual fee revenue distributed to stakers, that amounts to **less than 0.9% in real APR**. You are stripping 10 points of guaranteed protocol yield and replacing them with crumbs. Fee revenue is a rounding error, not a substitute for staking yield. **6. Centralization of the active validator set** Halving the staking yield simultaneously halves the commission revenue of our independent, security-focused validators. While subsidized corporate entities and foundation-backed nodes can operate at a loss, independent operators who maintain bare-metal infrastructure will be squeezed out, accelerating the centralization of the validator set. **Risk Asymmetry and Alignment:** Stakers take 100% of the price drawdown, 100% of the slashing risk, and 100% of the illiquidity risk during unbonding. Why would any rational delegator vote to cut their income in half, surrender annual liquidity, and risk infrastructure health for unproven market theories? **A Note on Finding Common Ground:** As a long-term capital allocator—and speaking for many delegators who keep this network secure—I am not dogmatically opposed to economic evolution or gradual sustainability adjustments. We are open to dialogue and genuine negotiation. However, we will never accept a framework where **100% of the financial, market, and illiquidity risk is dumped exclusively onto investors** while theoretical models and administrative budgets bear zero downside. If you want stakers to compromise, bring balanced proposals with guaranteed downside protections and shared risk. Until then, an unhedged 50% yield cut remains an absolute non-starter, and any on-chain proposal reflecting these terms will face a coordinated **No with Veto** , exactly as happened with Prop 82. Respect the capital securing the Hub. ---
**Author:** ![Guinch\_Roze](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/guinch_roze/32/9500_2.png) [@Guinch\_Roze](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/Guinch_Roze)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 8:17pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/15 "2026-10-30T20:17:18Z")
Hey Robo, happy to answer your questions. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > What do you believe all of these things are for? What’s your goal in building them now? How does the Hub benefit from building these things right now? I’m in favor of building the foundations first, so that potential demand can land on the Hub properly and find everything it needs, while of course weighing the financial and human costs. I understand Cosmos Labs has chosen the opposite approach: wait for demand, then build if needed. But since Skip joined the ICF as Cosmos Labs, the Hub has been presented to us as a router and a provider of interchain services. That’s exactly where these primitives make sense. Today, instead of being the interchain provider, the Hub sources almost everything from elsewhere. That’s the opposite of the vision we’ve been sold for months, close to years now. CosmWasm was an essential building block for a permissionless Hub where builders could build without limits. But on its own it wasn’t enough: TokenFactory was needed too. I asked for it, and we all voted for it. Without these two building blocks, the Stargaze and Hydro migrations would have been harder, even though Stargaze still had to go through governance. I remain convinced, perhaps wrongly, that these two proposals are a big part of why those migrations happened. Later, other builders said they were frustrated at not being able to build what they wanted because a building block was still missing: an oracle. So they went to Injective. That example shows that if we had thought about primitives early, we could have attracted some of those products, whatever one thinks of their quality. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > no external builders from other ecosystems materialized at all. I’d also point out that Cosmos Labs’ relationship with builders has been difficult, and that it has put a large part of the people invested in Cosmos at odds with you, at least on some topics. I don’t doubt your team’s skills or professionalism on many other things, and I recognize that. But that context probably played a part too. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > Now let’s look at what it cost: > > - Millions of dollars in community and ICF funding > - One of the worst vulnerabilities in Cosmos history impacted the Cosmos Hub, risking an infinite mint of ATOM and the complete collapse of the Hub > - Countless hours of contributor time that could have been spent on ATOM wasted on CosmWasm maintenance and security (Cosmwasm is a huge reason we’re facing these delays now) These were structural problems you had to face in order to improve as a foundation and as the team maintaining the stack and the Hub. A blessing in disguise, I’d say: without all of this, and without the community’s criticism, the team might still be a handful of people covering every topic. Today you seem well organized, with clearly defined roles. Your bandwidth is finally where it should have been from day one, when you took over in 2024, if I remember correctly. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > What I’m trying to illustrate is this: Building new primitives on the Hub has a real cost, both financially and in terms of time We all agree, and that’s precisely why the ATOM community kept asking you to hire for the technical side. You listened, it seems, since Hypha joined some time later, and I genuinely thank them for their long-standing work. On the financial side, I see foundations, chains and teams with far less funding that develop and ship much faster. The ICF treasury is significant, and in our view, with that kind of financial power, you could do a lot more. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > That’s what we’re hoping this roadmap discussion can act as a conduit for. A broad vision that product growth can come out of. This way we can tie products back to things that concretely advance the Hub’s goals and make ATOM succeed, rather than just build things on the Hub and hope that a builder comes along to use it. We’re looking at adjusting the process based on the feedback given in this thread to find a better way to help facilitate that. That’s why we think this process (despite taking some time) is pretty worthwhile to do. I think a middle ground between the Cosmos Labs process and the ATOM community’s process is achievable, one that works for everyone. It would only benefit both sides, and the atmosphere would be much better. > [@RoboMcGobo](#): > > In the case of CosmWasm, building a primitive on the Hub without a vision for what that primitive was for caused much more harm than good. I’m hoping we can avoid making the same mistake here. I think a clear roadmap would solve this, and we’ve been waiting for one for quite a while. The oracle discussion is a good test case. It isn’t a primitive without a purpose: your own rails list cross-chain pricing as one of the things they need. You’re lucky: ATOM holders are very patient. But the world keeps moving, and the feeling is that it’s moving mostly without us, while we stand here watching it go by. ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 8:29pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/16 "2026-10-30T20:29:35Z")
Do you not find it ironic that community / ICF spent millions of dollars, yet developers still don’t have the basic building blocks to get an ecosystem started? It makes us wonder where did all the spending go? Where’s the official testnet ATOM faucet? Why isn’t CL’s very own Skip:Connect running on the Hub? Of course third-party teams could bring them to the Hub but how do you expect anyone to be motivated if the “official” team is not even interested? In our very own case of vATOM we’d very much benefit from Skip:Connect but it just isn’t there on the Hub. And if Vitalik looked at cost and risk like you are doing, Ethereum should have stopped running right after the DAO hack. For you it’s CosmWasm to blame now, but if community wanted EVM you’d blame EVM. If community wanted Go you’d blame Go, right? Using your house analogy, the community simply wants a basic foundation to get things going, and it seems that you are unwilling to even prioritize building that foundation. ---
**Author:** ![RoboMcGobo](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/robomcgobo/32/5444_2.png) [@RoboMcGobo](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/RoboMcGobo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/17 "2026-10-30T20:33:14Z")
Hi Trave! I’m not sure where these statements and numbers are coming from. We haven’t said anywhere that raw inflation reductions are what we’ll be proposing, and we certainly haven’t published any numbers like proposing to cut staking APY to 10%, forcing 365 day lockups on people, etc etc. Remember that up to this point, we’ve just been sharing Gauntlet’s findings. We haven’t made any qualitative statements about those findings or what they should mean for the Hub and ATOM. I’d ask that you and others reserve judgment until the phase 2 outcomes have been posted. Much of what you seem to think is going to happen simply isn’t going to happen. We think there’s room for a tokenomic model for the Hub that is reflexive to revenue, such that if there’s no revenue, the inflation numbers that governance voted for don’t change, and a model that rewards stakers for being long-term aligned without forcing anyone to lock tokens (which we’d never do). The claims you’re making about cutting the yield to 10% are simply untrue. ---
**Author:** ![Tristian\_Tapfield](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/tristian_tapfield/32/8853_2.png) [@Tristian\_Tapfield](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/Tristian_Tapfield)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 4:45am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/18 "2026-10-31T04:45:18Z")
Etheruem ran full speed into L2 roll ups trying to become modular maybe cosmos learnt from cases with smaller timeframes like this? Or I could just be offering another excuse ---
**Author:** ![ATOM-Renaissance](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/forum.cosmos.network/atom-renaissance/32/9349_2.png) [@ATOM-Renaissance](https://forum.cosmos.network/u/ATOM-Renaissance)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 6:40am UTC](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/cosmos-quarterly-2-q3-26-hardening-interop-and-the-hub-tokenomics-roadmap/17517/19 "2026-10-31T06:40:38Z")
Not quite sure what you mean but our point is that Ethereum never stopped developing features just because this and that may be buggy or risky. Cosmos Labs putting the blame on permissionless CosmWasm is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In fact there has been countless cancellations but very minimal production launches coming from Cosmos Labs. This is a pattern that really gets the community frustrated. Why can’t we get anything shipped?