This is the fifth of the Hub Weekly Thursday recaps, per the cadence we committed to in the From Chaos to Stability to Growth post.
Every Thursday, we will call out significant Cosmos Hub updates on the forum, with a short companion thread on X, recapping announcements, live events like validator or community calls, and ecosystem updates!
For more info, see the linked posts, and contact @RoboMcGobo on telegram to submit news for the weekly.
This week: the Hub liquidity layer, a full quarter of tokenomics data, and Hydro comes to the Hub.
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Yesterday’s validator call put the Hub liquidity layer in focus: two of the designs we are exploring, the commitments that hold for any of them, plus delegation program deadlines and ATOM landing on Robinhood
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The tokenomics research now covers a full quarter of on-chain data, and the question shifts from how much selling to who is selling (this week’s thread)
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Hydro is migrating to the Cosmos Hub, with Inflow vaults expected by the end of June and auctions to follow. More info: Hydro on X: "https://t.co/qYdwVF1kUM" / X
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Hypha has proposed funding the Hub’s public testnet program through July 2027, paid in USDC from the community pool (draft proposal)
From Yesterday’s Validator Call: The Hub Liquidity Layer Is an Open Design Conversation
The June validator call ran yesterday morning, with the Hub liquidity layer as the in-depth topic.
We walked through two of the designs we are currently exploring. We’re not locked in to either design. They are simply the directions we have spent the most time studying so far. Nothing is finalized, we are open to other architectures entirely, and validator and community input on novel and unique DEX designs are welcome.
A native orderbook with third-party DEX plugins. A Hub-native orderbook services institutional flow, while AMM-style DEXes plug in to serve retail and long-tail liquidity, in a Duality-style architecture. What makes it attractive: institutions generally will not trade on AMMs given counterparty and compliance risk, so an orderbook supports an institutional go-to-market, while plugins preserve the retail experience and let community venues compete on the same orderflow. The tradeoffs: significant technical complexity, likely reliance on EVM, and liquidity that must be operated by professional market makers from day one.
An intents settlement layer, standalone or alongside a lighter-weight venue. Route Hub flow through an intents-based system rather than (or in addition to) a native orderbook. What makes it attractive: faster to ship, leverages existing solver networks, and cross-chain native by design, which matches the Hub’s IBC thesis. The tradeoffs: fee capture is much harder, institutional adoption of intent systems is unclear, and the Hub risks becoming a routing layer rather than a settlement venue, with less direct value accrual to ATOM.
Whatever design the Hub ends up with, here’s what we know:
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Service institutional and retail. The design has to do both; we are not picking one over the other.
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Fees benefit the Hub. Likely a taker-fee model on Hub orderflow, with revenue routed to the community pool, ATOM buybacks, or both.
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Bootstrapped liquidity, not ATOM-incentivized. Likely no ATOM emissions to LPs. Professional market makers retained on a small set of key pairs.
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Some possible use cases. Post-netting clearing-house settlement, forex, tokenized-deposit fungibility, and on/off-ramp aggregation.
A validator raised the need for a native ATOM lending market, especially with Mars winding down. We agree it is a real gap, but it is downstream of the liquidity layer decision. We are keeping it on the roadmap discussion list.
How you can help:
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Seen a unique DEX or liquidity design work well in another ecosystem? Tell us about it in this thread or the recap thread.
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Share your thoughts on the two designs above: what appeals, what worries you, what we are missing
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Bring questions to the community Twitter Space planned for the week of June 22
Also From the Call: Testnet Onboarding by June 15, and ATOM Lands on Robinhood
Three shorter updates from the ecosystem section of the call.
Delegation program: act by June 15. The Q2 criteria re-evaluation begins June 15, with full redelegation targeted around July 1. Testnet participation is now a requirement for delegations: validators need to onboard to the Hub testnet by June 15. Hypha administers the program, and the onboarding link can be found here. Participation tracking begins September 15. On the Ecosystem Growth tranche, first-cycle proposals from validators are under review now, targeting mid-cycle redelegation for selected proposals rather than forcing approvals into this week’s adjustment.
ATOM is live on Robinhood. Robinhood added ATOM to its main trading app this week, the first major US consumer broker listing since Coinbase and a material retail distribution surface.
Mintscan onboarding begins. Following last week’s acquisition announcement, the Mintscan team has begun onboarding. Near-term focus stays on stabilizing and migrating ecosystem infrastructure, including the Skip Go integration of Injective USDC.
Tokenomics Update: A Full Quarter of Data, and the Question Shifts from How Much to Who
The Gauntlet research now extends across 16 weeks of on-chain data, January through April, and we shared the headline cohort findings in this week’s thread.
The short version: sell pressure is highly concentrated. A small number of cohorts account for the large majority of attributed selling, and validator commissions are not the driver; they round to a fraction of a percent of the total. That last point matters because commission selling has long been assumed to be a major source of structural sell pressure. The data so far does not support that assumption.
One caveat. This is still preliminary data.
The attribution covers on-chain routes to sale. Activity that is already sitting on exchanges has no fresh on-chain footprint, so these figures describe how ATOM moves to market, not everything that happens once it is there.
What is next for phase 1: event studies measuring how cohorts reacted to past events like Prop 848, ATOM 2.0, and major market shocks; purchase-side attribution (how value moves in, not just out); and a comparison of rewards-driven sell pressure against other networks. We will share findings as they firm up, and a full phase 1 report will follow.
Hydro Is Migrating to the Cosmos Hub: Inflow Vaults by End of June, Auctions to Follow
Hydro, the interchain liquidity allocator, announced this week that it is migrating its infrastructure to the Cosmos Hub. Hydro on X: "https://t.co/qYdwVF1kUM" / X ?
Hydro launched on Neutron in November 2024, when the Hub still ran a permissioned CosmWasm environment and every contract deployment required governance approval. Neutron’s permissionless environment let the protocol ship and iterate quickly. With permissionless CosmWasm now live on the Hub, the original barrier is gone.
What is coming over:
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Inflow vaults. Deposit assets into vaults that automatically allocate capital to DeFi opportunities across chains, inside and outside Cosmos. Inflow manages approximately $2.5 million in assets today; the ATOM vault has averaged 18.77% APY to date.
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ATOM auctions. Protocols bid for temporary allocations of Hydro-managed ATOM liquidity. To date: 108 bids across 20 auction rounds, resulting in 88 liquidity deployments across 22 protocols.
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A possible strategic vault. Hydro is exploring a new vault that could be allocated, and re-allocated as frequently as needed, to protocols and initiatives that align with ecosystem priorities.
The Inflow vault infrastructure is expected to be fully deployed on the Hub by the end of June, with auction infrastructure following by the end of July.
Hypha’s Governance Proposal: Funding the Public Testnet
Hypha has published a draft proposal to operate the Hub’s public testnet program from August 2026 through July 2027, funded with $202K USDC from the community pool.
Hub mainnet maintenance is moving in-house to Cosmos Labs, while Hypha focuses on the testnet as a public good. The testnet matters more now than it ever has: it is where validator delegation requirements are earned (see above), where upgrades get rehearsed, and where new infrastructure gets proven before mainnet.
Cosmos Labs expressed support for the proposal on the forums. The on-chain vote is expected June 23. Read the draft, ask questions in the thread, and vote as you see fit.
Mad Easy on Cosmos: An AI-Powered Hackathon on the Hub
The Mad Scientists community is hosting Mad Easy on Cosmos, a one-week builder sprint on the Cosmos Hub for AI-assisted onchain experiments around risk, rewards, coordination, and play. Cosmos Labs is sponsoring alongside Odin Scan, and Robo and Nico from Cosmos Labs will judge entries.
The brief: build gacha-inspired games, loot mechanics, bonding-curve experiments, social coordination games, risk and reward simulations, and other onchain mad science that explores how people interact with incentives on the Hub, with AI as a co-builder, agent, mechanic, narrator, or simulation layer. Entries are scored on five signals: working prototype, creative mechanic, AI usage, Cosmos relevance, and incentive clarity.
The dates:
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Resources drop today, June 11, at 17:00 UTC
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Kickoff X Spaces on June 15 at 16:00 UTC
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Build week runs June 15 to 22, with submissions closing June 22 at 17:00 UTC in the Mad Scientists Discord
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Judging and showcase run June 22 to 29
The top five experiments share $1,500 in ATOM ($1,000 for first place), nine Odin Scan credits, and two Mad Scientists NFTs.
If you have been waiting for a low-stakes reason to try building on the Hub’s permissionless CosmWasm environment, a one-week AI-assisted sprint is about as low-stakes as it gets. Join the Discord, follow @madscientists_x for the kickoff Spaces, and start from the Hub docs.
That’s all for this week - thanks to everyone engaging across the forum, validator channels, and Telegram. Looking forward to next week’s update! Please let us know if you like the Weekly format, and what else you’d like to hear from us.
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Join the biweekly validator calls
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Join the next community call: Register for the community calendar here