Thanks for clarifying some potential ambiguity. There are definitely ways in which this proposition could come to life without direct competition to Neutron. This would potentially include governance specific smart contracts as well as the covenants and other types of Hub PoL treasuries which also require wasm capabilities. This could be deployed as a permissioned smart contract environment only targeting governance approved use-cases limited to the Hub’s core mandate. Therefore this would cause no overlap with the existing wasm consumer chain which offers permissionless deployment.
In this case, your discussion falls into the realm of the propositions made by Binary builders with their Atom Alignment Treasury’s design (AATs). More context on the matter on this specific paragraph: Discussion: AEZ Growth & the ATOM Alignment Treasury
TL;DR, they proposed eerily similar implementation options as the one stated in this post. Either to run smart contract via Neutron, or consider adding permissioned wasm under the Hub umbrella. Running this module as a separate chain would maintain Gaia’s minimalist approach and therefore we would agree to include this in the list of options.
Separately to answer your questions one-by-one:
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The possibilities to see other shared security hubs emerge are arguably narrow for two reasons. First, the hub offers much more history, therefore decentralization of the token supply as well as a more robust liquidity, less volatility, increased depth of market, etc… Secondly, the ATOM token is the only one that is specifically providing security and nothing else, where TIA and others are all having additional utility to their tokens by nature. People often think of Hubs in terms of the highest Marketcap or IBC connections but that’s really a flawed and oversimplified model.
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This second interconnection outcome is practically guaranteed as this is the core cosmos vision. In this world we talk about Mesh security, in which ATOM is expected to be a prominent actor, mainly due to the same reasons as stated in point 1. This is simply a more granular approach that would reduce the required alignment with the hub an be more of a financial risk management based on a rehypothecation fabric.
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This is a possibility, in this scenario Neutron has to become “unforkable” as well by offering unique primitives and network effects that no other copy can replicate (think about atomic composability with the whole AEZ for example).
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In our previous post we clearly explained why consumer chains don’t have to be 100% aligned with the hub, they actually maintain a certain degree of freedom with their own independent and sovereign token. Full Set security does require symbiotic relations but not a full alignment per say. This requires cooperation and mutual benefit as previously stated whilst keeping two separate identities.
I hope this answers your questions, otherwise feel free to ask for more details. Nevertheless we are happy to have thoughtful conversation with you here in a very polite and positive manner. This was an absolute pleasure to speak with you.