CosmWasm smart contracts, combined with the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, allow developers to create more advanced and sophisticated dApps.
CosmWasm for CTOs
CosmWasm
CosmWasm is a modern, powerful Wasm-based smart contracting platform that can be plugged into the Cosmos-SDK easily. This shows one of the main strengths of CosmWasm; the contracts written with CosmWasm have a tight union with IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) natively, which lets you enter the multi-chain future.
Cosmos
Cosmos is an interconnected network of more than 50 PoS blockchains blockchains that transfer tokens and communicate via IBC - the most secure bridging technology. CosmWasm allows you to build anything you can do in Solidity, but more securely, while also enabling native multi-chain smart contract applications without trusted third parties.
More about Cosmos, IBC
IBC is a generic protocol, which enables the transfer of value and data between different blockchains in a secure and trustless manner.
CosmWasm can leverage IBC as a communication layer to create powerful cross-chain dApps.
CosmWasm contracts on two different blockchains can communicate via standard protocols (ICS20 for token transfer, ICS27 for cross-chain contract calls), or develop their custom protocol for their unique use-case (like Mesh Security).
This enables multi-chain oracles, where smart contracts can access data from multiple sources, and even use data from other blockchains to trigger actions on their own chain.
This enables multi-chain oracles, where smart contracts can access data from multiple sources, and even use data from other blockchains to trigger actions on their own chain.
And it allows novel cross-chain composition, like a Lending Protocol autonomously liquidating on a DEX located on another chain.
CosmWasm smart contracts with IBC bring many possibilities for dapps, providing trustless, secure, and customizable cross-chain interactions.
The only limit is your imagination.
Going beyond Cosmos
But guess what?
This doesn’t mean that CosmWasm is ONLY for Cosmos blockchains, as it is already expanding to Polkadot ecosystem. And we don’t see the reason why not with other blockchain protocols.
CosmWasm allows you to build anything you can do in Solidity, what you can do in the Ethereum ecosystem, but more securely. The cherry on top is, CosmWasm also enables native multi-chain smart contract applications without trusted third parties, with better cost-efficiency.
History
2019
CosmWasm was born at HackAtom Berlin in June 2019 by Team Gaians, and Ethan Frey was the only one from the team who wanted to grow the successful prototype to the production-level software that would benefit the whole ecosystem.
And there came Ethan’s nickname, ‘Father of CosmWasm’.
2020
With IBC and CosmWasm at his heart, Ethan Frey started the core development in early 2020 without any external financial support or a proper company structure setup. Bi-weekly community calls started in March 2020.
Soon, CosmWasm got the attention of the Cosmos community: adoption by chains and long-term grants started to happen, so the team could grow with more developers from Q2 2020.
Confio GmbH was also established in Q3 2020.
2021
With the launch of Gaia, we witnessed the first two smart contracts on different chains communicate through IBC in Q1 2021.
CosmWasm stable version 1.0 was released officially in May 2021 and successfully security-audited.
2022
In 2022, CosmWasm’s meteoric rise was evident as its X / Twitter presence tripled, reflecting growing interest in this groundbreaking technology.
The introduction of Sylvia added versatility to the CosmWasm ecosystem, while the successful launch of the CosmWasm Academy attracted over 500 eager students, reinforcing our commitment to developers.
2023
The year 2023 stood out with an event that drew attention from across the blockchain world —the awe-inspiring AwesomWasm conference hosted by Confio in Berlin.
This gathering of minds brought together visionaries, developers, and enthusiasts to explore the latest in the CosmWasm ecosystem.
Following AwesomWasm, HackWasm Berlin provided a platform for developers to showcase their skills and creativity, further invigorating the CosmWasm community.
Today
Now, CosmWasm is getting more and more adoption to the level that people outside of Cosmos have started to identify CosmWasm as one of the indispensable tech stacks along with Cosmos-SDK and IBC.
From the beginning until forever, CosmWasm is all about open source ethos, community, transparency, and collaboration.