Cosmos Hub (ATOM)

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Historical price evolution of Cosmos Hub

Daily historical data. Updated automatically.

Cosmos Hub was born from the vision of Jae Kwon, a Computer Science graduate from Cornell University, who in 2014 published a research paper on a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm that required no mining. Kwon then conceived the idea of a network of interoperable blockchains. In 2015, Ethan Buchman joined as co-founder after meeting Kwon in the Cryptocurrency Research Group, developing together Tendermint Core, the BFT (Byzantine Fault Tolerant) consensus engine that would become the technological foundation of Cosmos. That same year they co-founded Tendermint Inc. (also known as All in Bits Inc.) with the participation of Zarko Milosevic.

The project took definitive shape in 2016, when Kwon and Buchman published the whitepaper "Cosmos: A Network of Distributed Ledgers", which described the concept of "internet of blockchains". The project won the "Most Innovative Project" award at Shanghai International Blockchain Week, and the Interchain Foundation (ICF) was established, a non-profit organisation based in Switzerland to finance development. The ICF conducted a sale of ATOM tokens in 2017 that raised 16.8 million USD in 29 minutes, complemented by private sales carried out earlier in the year.

On 13th March 2019, the Cosmos Hub mainnet was launched, the first blockchain of the Cosmos network, with staking activated in May of that year. In parallel, Tendermint Inc. raised 9 million USD in Series A funding. In March 2021, the IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol was activated on the Cosmos Hub, enabling native transfer of tokens and data between independent blockchains, considered the most important technical milestone of the project. ATOM reached its all-time high of 44.80 USD in September 2021, whilst projects such as Osmosis, dYdX, Injective, THORChain and Celestia were built on the Cosmos SDK.

In February 2022, Tendermint Inc. split into two entities: Ignite Inc. (Cosmos SDK development) and NewTendermint (led by Jae Kwon, focused on Gno.land and Tendermint2). In October 2022, the ATOM 2.0 proposal, which proposed a thorough revision of ATOM tokenomics to improve value capture, was vetoed by the community. The collapse of Terra-LUNA (a Cosmos ecosystem project) in May 2022 negatively impacted the market, and ATOM fell approximately 70% from its all-time high by the end of 2022.

On 25th November 2023, the community approved Proposal 848 by a narrow majority (41.1% of votes in favour), which reduced ATOM's maximum inflation rate from 14% to 10% to decrease selling pressure on the token. Jae Kwon immediately announced a fork called AtomOne in response, arguing that the inflation reduction compromised network security. In 2024, Interchain Labs published that an individual linked to North Korea contributed to Cosmos code between 2022 and 2024, with a complete security audit carried out without finding active vulnerabilities. ATOM fell from approximately 14.50 USD in March 2024 to 3.61 USD in September 2024. In October 2025, Cosmos SDK v0.53 was adopted, a fundamental update that improved performance and enabled new functions for ecosystem chains. In April 2026, the community approved the Gaia v27.1.0 update (governance proposal #1026), whilst Cosmos Labs issued a request for proposals to redesign ATOM tokenomics towards a model oriented to real income.

Cosmos Hub functions as the central core of the Cosmos network, connecting independent blockchains called "zones" through the IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) protocol, active since March 2021 and the interoperability standard of the Cosmos ecosystem, which enables the native transfer of tokens and messages between connected blockchains. Its architecture is structured in three layers: the application layer processes transactions and updates the network state, the networking layer facilitates communication between different blockchains, and the consensus layer utilises Tendermint BFT. This consensus mechanism combines a Byzantine fault-tolerant algorithm with Proof of Stake, where validators must lock ATOM tokens as collateral and take turns to propose and vote on blocks. The system tolerates up to one-third of malicious or inactive validators without compromising transaction finality, which becomes irreversible immediately upon inclusion in a block.

To participate as a validator, a node must rank amongst the top 180 by quantity of ATOM in staking, a threshold that has increased from the initial 100. ATOM holders who do not operate their own nodes can delegate their tokens to validators and receive a portion of the generated rewards. The protocol implements slashing mechanisms that reduce the stake of validators who act maliciously or remain inactive. Governance operates completely on-chain, allowing ATOM holders to vote on upgrade proposals, parameter changes and community fund allocation, with voting power proportional to the quantity of tokens in stake. ATOM maintains a variable inflationary supply, currently capped at 10% annually following a reduction in November 2023 from the previous range of 7-20%, designed to incentivise participation in staking and strengthen network security.

Data verified against external sources. Some values may have changed since the last update.