Cosmos

Cosmos is a blockchain project that aims to solve some of the major challenges facing the blockchain industry. It markets itself as a solution to the "slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally harmful" proof-of-work protocols used by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Cosmos seeks to offer an ecosystem of interconnected blockchains that can communicate with each other, addressing the fragmentation in the blockchain space. The project was first conceived in 2014 when Tendermint, a core contributor to Cosmos, was founded. A white paper for Cosmos was published in 2016, followed by a token sale in 2017. The ATOM token is used to secure the Cosmos Hub, the project's main blockchain, through a hybrid proof-of-stake algorithm. ATOMs also play a role in the network's governance. A key focus for Cosmos is making blockchain technology more accessible to developers. It offers a modular framework and the Interblockchain Communication protocol to simplify the process of building decentralized applications. Scalability is also a priority, with the goal of enabling significantly more transactions per second compared to older blockchain networks. The Cosmos network is structured in three layers - the application layer, the networking layer, and the consensus layer. This architecture is designed to facilitate communication between different blockchains within the Cosmos ecosystem. The project's long-term vision is to create a "Internet of Blockchains" where multiple chains can interact with each other seamlessly.