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Version: On chain (v19.1.0)

Interchain Security

The Interchain Security feature brings to the Cosmos Hub a shared security model, where the Cosmos Hub validators, also validate on consumer chains. This is valuable for consumer chains, as consumer chains can focus on product-market fit, rather than business and operational agreements in bringing together a validator set. As part of this agreement, consumer chains pay for the security by distributing a portion of the consumer chain revenue to Hub token holders.

All potential chains are onboarded as consumer chains, via Hub Governance, with the feedback from the Hub community.

New ICS features​

Novel Interchain Security features such as Partial Set Security and Power Shaping bring benefits for both the consumer chains and validators:

Top-N consumer chains​

Validators inside the top-N percent of voting power are required to validate the consumer chain.

e.g. top-95 means that the 95% of the validators (by voting power) are required to run the consumer chain binary

Opt-in consumer chains​

Only validators that opt to running a consumer chains are required to run the chain binary and become eiligible for consumer chain rewards distribution.

New consumer chain parameters​

Consumer chains gain the ability to customize the validator set to their needs:

  • define allow/denylists
  • set maximum number of validators
  • set validator power cap

Notable consumer chains​

Currently the Cosmos Hub has the following two Consumer Chains.

Neutron​

Neutron, is a smart contracting platform, that was the first consumer chain onboarded.
Neutron was onboarded as a consumer chain in May 2023, see Hub proposal 792 for more details.

Stride​

Stride, is a liquid staking provider, which aims to unlock liquidity for Cosmos Hub token holders.
Stride was onboarded as a consumer chain in July 2023, see Hub proposal 799 for more details.