Cosmos, a blockchain where developers can create custom chains that interconnect and communicate, has revealed its roadmap for 2024. According to an X post on September 25, the roadmap centers on increasing modularity, improving the developer experience, addressing “technical debt,” and driving user adoption. With this, Cosmos developers plan to take on the more established platform, Ethereum.
At the heart of Cosmos are features such as Tendermint, a consensus system that anchors blockchains such as the BNB Chain; Cosmos SDK, a software developer kit that allows coders to build fluid and custom blockchains; and the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC), from where all deployed custom Cosmos chains can connect and communicate, effectively driving interoperability.
Cosmos Wants To Repay The Technical Debt And Make Its SDK More Modular
In 2024, reading from the roadmap, Cosmos aims to solidify its position by attracting developers from competing platforms as they repay the “technical debt.” In app development, technical debt leads to extra work and can be caused by resource constraints and shifting code requirements.
Cosmos will expand its developer base to repay this debt and make the Cosmos SDK more modular. Although the team claims the SDK has been modular in theory, swapping and modifications have made practical implementation more challenging.
Therefore, to tackle these challenges, the work already done on Cosmos SDK will continue into 2024. Then, the goal will be to make the kit more modular at the core. This will make it more adaptable and flexible, meeting developer requirements.
Ethereum Is Still Dominant
It is yet to be seen whether this will be achievable in 2024 and whether Cosmos will grow as dominant as Ethereum. Currently, Ethereum is the leading smart contract platform, based on its market cap and the total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi). Additionally, its ecosystem of layer-2s has been increasing, with more protocols and blockchains connecting to Ethereum to take advantage of the network’s pioneering activity.
DeFiLlama data on September 29 shows that all the top 10 bridges are connected to Ethereum. To illustrate, Stargate–by Cosmos, is connected to Ethereum and multiple blockchains, including Avalanche and the BNB Chain.
Besides Stargate, other bridges are Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible and predominantly connect to Ethereum layer-2s and Polygon, the sidechain. For example, the zkSync Era, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, and the Optimism Gateway, are plugged into Ethereum. Cumulatively, these bridges move millions of dollars worth of tokens to and from Ethereum at any instance.
Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView