Atom 2.0. This new development transforms the role and vision of the Cosmos Hub from building foundations to helping the ecosystem grow and prosper.
To start, let’s discuss Interchain Security (ICS). With ICS, smaller chains can import the entire economic security of the Cosmos Hub which is secured by billions worth of staked $ATOM in exchange for some gas fees and staking rewards. This means that Quicksilver can now use ICS to secure its liquid staking functionality without having to worry about being attacked or losing value due to inflationary selling pressure.
With Liquid Staking, users can finally unlock their staked collateral and trade it across other Cosmos chains while still securing the network with their $ATOM. This is similar to liquid-staked ETH on Ethereum, which has been popularized by Lido and used as collateral by multiple DeFi dapps such as AAVE!
Now price efficiency across Cosmos chains. With Interchain Scheduler, the ecosystem can create a secure base layer for other app chains to build on, helping with secure economic scaling and furthering the growth of Cosmos app chains and activities. This means that $ATOM prices will no longer vary from one chain to another due to arbitrage opportunities or MEV bots sandwiching transactions.
The proposed tokenomics in Atom 2.0 is being debated as some investors were hoping for a revamp that would make $ATOM disinflationary to follow in the narrative of ETH’s ultrasound money ideology. However, from a long-term perspective, anything below $5.60 should be considered a good entry looking at the significance of the Cosmos ecosystem on the crypto markets in general when the bull market comes again. Any rally towards $20 is likely to be met with strong selling pressure due as it would be a key resistance level, and existing $ATOM holders should look to take some profits towards the $20 range.
Overall, the ATOM 2.0 whitepaper presents a solid roadmap and shows why the Cosmos Hub is here to stay. Although the proposed tokenomics are being debated, even if $ATOM price acts more as a public good than an investible token, if it helps to develop the rest of the Cosmos ecosystem’s modular blockchains, those are the areas where investors can look to invest in for better financial returns.