Cosmos founder to airdrop forked ATOM1 tokens to voters against reducing Hub inflation
Cosmos co-founder Jae Kwon is forking the Cosmos Hub ATOM -2.14% , the central chain of the Cosmos network, after the community approved proposal 848. This proposal sets the maximum inflation of the Hub’s native token, Atom, at 10%.
The fork will result in a new network, AtomOne, with the associated token, ATOM1. The launch plans include rewarding most of the initial genesis supply, presumably 90%, to those who opposed the proposal. The remaining 10% will be pre-mined for various purposes, as stated in a document by Kwon. The Interchain Foundation will not be included in the airdrop.
The controversial proposal to limit Atom’s inflation rate passed narrowly yesterday with 41.1% support against 38.5% opposition, in the most popular vote in the Cosmos ecosystem’s history. Advocates argued that Atom’s inflation was higher than necessary for maintaining security and that validators could remain profitable with a 10% inflation rate.
Kwon, who developed the Cosmos network’s Tendermint consensus algorithm and co-founded the Hub, voiced opposition to this decision due to his concerns about the change's impact on network security. Unwilling to accept the vote’s outcome, he is now determined to split the Cosmos Hub despite many community members requesting him not to do so. The Hub serves as the core blockchain of the Cosmos network, with Atom being integral for staking, governance, and transaction fees.
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Kwon claims the new token aims to replace the original design of the Hub with changed governance mechanisms, such as altering the quorum threshold for passing governance decisions from less than 50% on the Hub to two-thirds on the new network.
The fork will use the same underlying software if the existing Cosmos Hub network, known as Gaia, with the chain ID “cosmoshub4,” maintaining key features such as IBC and interchain security. It will preserve the original maximum inflation rate of 20% to reward validators and stakers adequately. Additionally, Kwon has proposed a separate fee token, Photon (phATOM1), to operate in conjunction with ATOM1.