Evmos, Cosmos, and Blockchain Scaling
If you care about blockchain scaling and modularity, Evmos is one of the most exciting new Cosmos ecosystem projects to watch. Scaling is one of the key issues surrounding the future of crypto and mass adoption. In contrast to Ethereum’s rollup-centric scaling strategy, the Cosmos ecosystem has an alternative approach centered around a multi-chain vision.
As a quick summary, Cosmos ($ATOM) is an ecosystem of independent parallel blockchains. Cosmos allows devs to build individual blockchains (called zones) that can transact, share data, and communicate with each other. The end goal is to create an interoperable “internet of blockchains” that is fast, scalable, and interoperable.
Many well-known products have been built in the Cosmos ecosystem, including Luna/Terra and Binance Smart Chain. We won’t dive into the weeds on Cosmos here, but this overview from BowTiedPigeon and the team at Left Curve Capital is a great place to learn more. As a quick summary, Cosmos consists of three main layers:
- Tendermint Core: This is the Byzantine fault tolerance consensus algorithm that powers Cosmos. It’s unique in that it separates the consensus and network layer from the application layer of a blockchain. In doing so, it makes it easier for devs because the only thing they need to focus on is the application logic.
- Cosmos SDK: This is Cosmos’ application layer framework. It provides dev kit modules that make it easy for devs to build application-specific blockchains.
- IBC (Inter-Blockchain Protocol): The communication standard that ties the Cosmos ecosystem together. It allows heterogenous blockchains to communicate and transfer tokens to each other, and also enables shared security between blockchains that use it.
Evmos: Bringing EVM Compatibility to Cosmos
Evmos is essentially bridging the gap between Cosmos and Ethereum. Starting back in 2016, the Tharsis Labs team began working on Ethermint, a project that aimed to bring the scaling benefits of the Tendermint consensus protocol to Ethereum and EVM-based applications. Tharsis Labs has since rebranded the project to Evmos and is seeking to build the first EVM-compatible L1 in the IBC ecosystem.
Taking a step back, EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is the software platform that developers use to build DApps for Ethereum. Previously, since Ethereum was the first blockchain that supported smart contract execution, the only way to implement a smart contract was through its Solidity programming language.
Thanks to this first mover advantage which spurred a flywheel for further development in the EVM ecosystem, EVM has become the de-facto standard runtime for smart contract execution. While many devs find Rust friendlier to build on than Solidity, it’s still important for blockchains to support EVM compatibility to attract developers and talent to their ecosystems. This is where Evmos comes in.
So what is Evmos? It’s a Proof-of-Stake blockchain built using the Cosmos SDK running on top of the Tendermint Core consensus protocol that’s fully compatible with Ethereum. Evmos will allow any new or existing EVM DApps to integrate with Cosmos.
Furthermore, EVM compatibility provides familiarity to devs that could attract them to the Cosmos ecosystem via Evmos. (Side note: the proliferation of projects built on NEAR’s Aurora is another testament to the attractiveness of EVM on alt-L1s). Furthermore, since Evmos is built on the Cosmos SDK, it’s interoperable with other Cosmos blockchains through the IBC.
The ideal end result for Evmos is to be a high-throughput, EVM-compatible blockchain with fast finality and horizontal scaling through Cosmos IBC. Exciting stuff – but the real question on everyone’s mind is, wen token?
Wen token? Enter the Rektdrop
In December 2021, the Tharsis Labs team announced the “Rektdrop,” the genesis airdrop for Evmos. As the name implies, the Rektdrop aims to reward active participants in the Cosmos ecosystem, while also giving reparations to participants in the Ethereum and Cosmos ecosystems who have been “rekt” in some way. Great news for anyone impacted by any of the numerous exploits/rugs that happened throughout 2021.
But what if you escaped 2021 unscathed from rugs and have never interacted with Cosmos? Chances are you’re still eligible for the Rektdrop. If you’ve used the most popular DApps on Ethereum, ranging from Aave to OHM, you’ll get a Rektdrop reward proportional to your gas expenditure.
November 25, 2021 at 19:00 UTC was the eligibility snapshot for the Rektdrop. The Tharsis Labs team says they haven’t finalized weighting for each category in the eligibility requirements. That said, they’ve disclosed that the more eligible actions you’ve completed, the more tokens you qualify for. January 2022 was the initial launch target for mainnet, but the Tharsis Labs team has since pushed the date back to February 28, 2022.
Evmos Token Incentives
The tokens from the Rektdrop will comprise 80 million, or 40%, of the initial genesis supply of 200 million tokens. The team will issue 300 million tokens in the first year, after which issuance will adopt an exponential decay schedule. On a per-block basis, newly released tokens are distributed as follows: 40% of new tokens through staking rewards, 25% through team vesting, 25% through usage incentives, and 10% through the community pool.
The 40% of tokens dedicated to staking rewards will be issued proportionally based on the amount of Evmos token staked. At genesis, there will be 150 validators, but the number of possible validators is adjustable subject to governance.
The 25% dedicated to the usage incentives pool will help subsidize gas for users, among other user incentivization initiatives. The network decides with DApps will get gas subsidies by directing incentives to specific smart contracts. In the future, the Tharsis Labs team will launch usage incentives that increase TVL, like a governance-controlled liquidity mining program.
The Evmos “dApp Store” revenue split model is also a unique incentive for developers. Similar to the iOS App Store’s platform fee model, the dApp Store splits fees between contract developers and network operators. The distribution will initially be implemented as a 50/50 split but can thereafter be adjusted by governance.
conclusion
Blockchain dev teams are starting to shift away from monolithic architectures and turn more to modular architectures. In light of this, I would be remiss to not mention Cevmos (Celestia + Evmos). Cevmos is a modular stack for EVM-based DApps on Cosmos using Celestia rollups.
We’ve previously discussed the benefits of rollups for scaling and how they execute transactions off-chain to alleviate congestion on L1. Celestia is a pluggable, general-purpose data availability layer. To be clear, Celestia doesn’t do any execution, it just makes data available, leaving execution to rollups which are specialized for it.
The result: an interoperable EVM-equivalent stack on Cosmos optimized for rollups and differentiated from ETH mainnet.
My key takeaway from Evmos is the potential role it can play within the larger trend toward modular blockchain architectures. Evmos is at the intersection between two of the largest ecosystems in crypto, Ethereum and Cosmos IBC.
It has the potential to attract devs through EVM compatibility and its unique incentive structure, while also benefitting from the Cosmos’ ecosystem increasing traction. If you’re reading this, you’re probably also eligible for some allocation of the Rektdrop, so keep an eye out for any updates from their team.
