This is great, @Guinch_Roze, and it touches on many of the key points we’ve been thinking about as well. More to come in this cycle of calls, where we will touch on the topic.
Personally, though:
“EVM is about expanding the addressable market” is a great way of thinking, and I can add that it is also about compounding. Unlike CosmWasm, the compounding effect on EVM is, at the tech or commercial level, greater. Generally, the widespread adoption means there are thousands of teams, resources, and assets you can choose from and get support for.
Sometimes, certain pieces of tech get “close enough” between each other technically that the perks are more in those layers than in the performance itself.
As for dual vs side-chain:
You’re spot on about the fact that regardless of the choice, the newly formed Ecosystem team at Cosmos Labs (with the acquisition of Mintscan) will act as the main maintainer.
There might also be a third option here, where we have a side-chain, but we abstract the experience to have it feel and behave like a single chain. After all, Ethereum is, in a way, really 2 very well interlinked chains. That, however, would most likely take away the complexity from the things you talk about and put it on the implementation itself; it’s not like it’ll be an easy feat, and it’d most likely involve the most change and difficulty.
Depending on the use-case we want to see in the Hub, the choice might change too. Imagining we use IBC across both networks (ofc!), one question I have is: when is 1 IBC hop acceptable, and in which use-cases would it degrade the experience? Depending on which side certain aspects of the Hub’s features sit, one IBC hop could introduce an unnecessary delay.
Ultimately, I do believe the simplest and lowest UX friction option will win.