Cosmos Hub

FAQ's

How to stake Cosmos (ATOM)?

For the average user the best way to stake ATOMs is by delegating to one of the Validators of the Network.

You can delegate/bond your ATOM in a single click within Ledger or many other wallets.

If you want to reinvest your rewards, you have to manually claim them and delegate again.

Please consider that withdrawing your funds from staking will take 21 days.

How much can I earn staking Cosmos (ATOM)?

With the proposed block time of 5s, the initial inflation is 7%. The effective inflation depends on the actual current block time.

The proposed inflation will rise by up to 13% p.a. to 20% until we reached a Total Staked of 66%.

Once the Total Staked is over 66% the inflation will slowly decrease back until 7%.

Effectively the staking yield always depends on the total staked, proposed inflation and block time, which are live tracked on this site

Is there a risk to staking Cosmos?

Yes, ATOM delegated to a validator can be partially slashed if the validator misbehaves. In addition, there is a 21 day lockup period when you stake your ATOM.

Slashing means the delegated ATOM are forfeited (burned) without the possibility of recovery. On the Cosmos Hub, two attributable faults can lead to slashing events for the delegated ATOM:

• Slashing by 0.01% can occur if the validator is offline for too long. Uptime is achieved when the validator signs at least 500 out of the last 10.000 blocks. If a validator does not sign minimum 500 blocks out of the last 10.000, a downtime slash occurs.
• Slashing by 5% can occur if the validator signs two different blocks at the same height (double-signing). This fault is harder to anticipate, resulting from bad operation practices or outright malicious intent from the validator operator.

Therefore it is very crucial to choose a professional and trusted Staking Provider.

What is Cosmos (ATOM)?

Cosmos is described as the Internet of Blockchains, the main purpose of the network is to enable the communication between different blockchains.

Cosmos envisions that interoperable blockchain technology make the world economy more resilient through decentralization, more accountable through transparency, and more efficient through programmable value. The future economy consists of over a million interconnected blockchains used to exchange digitized real-world assets and provably scarce digital assets.

How was Cosmos launched?

75% of the coins were sold via a Token Sale in April 2017. The sale price was around $0.1 per ATOM.

5% of the coins were assigned to Lead Donors of the project. 

These coins have been unlocked and distributed since 14th March 2019.

10% of the coins are assigned to the Interchain Foundation (IFC),

and another 10% to ALL IN BITS, Inc with a vesting period of 2 years.

Who is the team behind Cosmos?

The idea of Cosmos and Tendermint was first introduced by Jae Kwon, who still leads big parts of the project.

Now Cosmos has a worldwide community of developers and is supported by the Interchain Foundation.

What problem does Cosmos solve?

Cosmos solves three primary problems in blockchain: sovereignty, scalability, and sustainability.

Sovereignty: Blockchains today encourage all economic activity to take place on a single chain. This mindset leads to centralization in governance, ongoing costs for smart contract developers who build on these chains, and high fees for users of congested chains. In contrast, the Cosmos SDK is free for developers and allows them to build sovereign blockchain apps without ongoing costs.

Scalability: No matter how many transactions per second a blockchain can claim, in Cosmos, developers can always improve throughput with horizontal scalability. Scalability can be achieved by (1) duplicating a blockchain to relieve congestion or (2) splitting up the apps on a blockchain into multiple application-specific blockchains. Interchain token transfers allow these multiple chains to continue as one network.

Sustainability: Cosmos blockchains use an efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm for securing the network. This PoS algorithm reduces the Cosmos carbon footprint by more than 99% compared to Proof-of-Work blockchains like Bitcoin.

What is the ATOM token?

ATOM is the Cosmos Hub’s primary token and secures the Hub’s valuable interchain services. If you hold ATOM, you can contribute to the security of the Cosmos Hub by staking it. In exchange for locking your ATOM, you receive rewards in newly minted ATOM and a share of the transaction fees that are collected by the blockchain.

By staking ATOM, you are able to vote in Cosmos Hub governance decisions.