Why Does the Cosmos Ecosystem Struggle to Get Attention?

I came across a tweet from Rooter, the co-founder of Solend and Suilend, asking: “Why has Cosmos never received the same attention as Solana?” Here are my thoughts:

1. Cosmos Is Not Equal to Cosmos Hub

Cosmos is often mistakenly thought of as just Cosmos Hub, leading to the belief that if ATOM’s price underperforms, Cosmos as a whole has “failed.”

In reality, the Cosmos ecosystem is incredibly diverse and dominates various verticals, or at least has strong competitors in many areas.

Projects like Fetch, Cronos, Injective, dYdX, Thorchain, MANTRA, Akash Network, Celestia, Saga, Dymension, and Sei are all gaining significant attention in their respective fields.

These are all Cosmos chains. The difference is that they are sovereign chains capable of self-governance, with their own ecosystems, foundations, marketing strategies, branding, and more.

Even larger chains like Polygon or BNB Chain partially adopt Cosmos technology. (Translator’s note: Polygon PoS uses Tendermint consensus, and BSC uses the Cosmos SDK.)

There are also several upcoming major projects, such as Babylon, Berachain, or Nillion, that utilize Cosmos technology. Some of these projects are more publicly recognized as “Cosmos projects,” while others are not, and that’s okay. (Translator’s note: Although Berachain is built using the Cosmos SDK, it has consistently resisted being labeled as a “Cosmos project.”)

Therefore, the first reason why Cosmos is perceived as lacking appeal is that it is still often equated with Cosmos Hub and ATOM.

2. Inaction by the Interchain Foundation

Secondly, unlike organizations like the Solana Foundation or Ethereum Foundation, the Interchain Foundation does not play a central role in coordinating marketing, developer onboarding, community initiatives, and development—at least not yet.

The advantage of this approach is minimal dependency on a single organization, but the downside is a lack of consistency, difficulty in coordination, dispersed vision, and unclear responsibility.

Thanks to the Solana Foundation, Solana has been able to move very quickly. The Solana Foundation has taken a very proactive approach, hosting large conferences like Breakpoint, funding global Superteams, and strategically incentivizing all market participants to join and educate themselves about Solana.

This is fantastic, and in fact, we are working hard to replicate this model for the Cosmos ecosystem. It’s extremely challenging without sufficient funding.

3. The Ecosystem Lacks a “Unified Currency”

Thirdly, it’s important to note that Cosmos’s core principle is interoperability while maintaining chain sovereignty, which means there is no “unified currency” that can dominate all these chains.

There is no single foundational chain or token supporting the entire ecosystem, and this isn’t because they “forgot” about it—it’s because that’s the essence of Cosmos.

I wasn’t around when ATOM launched in 2019, but I’ve been told that this was a conscious design decision—not to directly tie the adoption of IBC to ATOM’s value, but to let the market decide.

Cosmos’s principles give it strong adaptability, which is beneficial for long-term sustainability, but it doesn’t lend itself to short-term hype.

Terra (Translator’s note: Terra (LUNA) was developed using the Cosmos SDK, and its collapse in 2022 dealt a significant blow to the Cosmos ecosystem) proved the application chain theory in an extreme case. Tendermint, now known as Comet BFT, has been around for a long time and is widely adopted. IBC has proven to be flexible, has never been hacked, and is integrated by many projects.

That said, I still hope ATOM performs well and holds its ground because it helped kickstart this $30 billion ecosystem, proving its technology, and remains in the top 40 by market cap five years after its token launch.

Areas for Improvement

1. Rebrand the Cosmos brand as “Interchain.”
2. Improve the developer onboarding process.
3. Replicate the Solana Superteam model.
4. The Interchain Foundation should take a more proactive role.

The Interchain Foundation is currently undergoing some structural changes and may take more action moving forward.

There’s still a lot to consider and many aspects to figure out, but these are my overall thoughts.