So, what is this new cryptocurrency called ATOM? ATOM and its blockchain Cosmos are the rising stars in 2019’s world of altcoins. For you who don’t know, ATOM is the native cryptocurrency of the Cosmos blockchain. According to the official website, Cosmos is a blockchain 3.0 where a different network of blockchains can mutually interact with another network of blockchains. And they made it possible in a decentralized fashion. It sounds amazing, isn’t it? Let’s analyze further what exactly is the Cosmos network and its native token ATOM.

The Background – Limitation With Other Existing Blockchains

Cosmos is designed to solve the classic problems of blockchain, which include scalability, usability, and sovereignty. As we know, the two most popular blockchains in the world are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Both of them have big scalability problems. Bitcoin’s maximum transaction per second is just 7 TPS while Ethereum can go up to 15 TPS. The technical limitation is so huge, and theoretically, it’s not possible for both coins to handle huge real-life applications, especially when it comes to financing.

Ethereum also has a problem with usability. Ethereum’s biggest use case is to enable developers to develop what they call as decentralized applications (dApps). The problem is, Ethereum’s EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is very limited to several programming languages, and the lines of codes cannot be executed automatically.

Last but not least, the other first and second generations of blockchain also have issues with sovereignty. Let’s use Ethereum again as our example. The problem with Ethereum’s dApps is that the governance system in the Ethereum has to approve all kinds of changes for the dApp itself. For example, if a developer wants to fix something inside his dApp, it has to be approved by the governance system of the Ethereum network itself.



Other blockchain platforms typically adopt the similar system of sovereignty. For a dApp to improve, it has to be accepted by the blockchain network’s governance. All these limitations make blockchain not practical enough to be used in the real-life by real applications outside the crypto industry. This is where Cosmos is trying to fit in. To solve all of these issues.

Interoperability Between Blockchains In Cosmos Network

The idea of Cosmos is like a bunch of things connected to each other through the ‘internet of blockchains’. Different from older generations of blockchain where they cannot ‘connect’ to one another, Cosmos developers believe interoperability is the only way to move forward. The idea of the Cosmos network is that different blockchains can still keep their sovereignty while they are still able to process the transactions quite quickly.



This theory becomes reality thanks to different types of tools provided by the Cosmos team like the Tendermint, IBC, and Cosmos Software Development Kit. The idea is that people can build their own customizable blockchains while the applications can still connect to each other with ease.

On the Cosmos network, developers can easily use Tendermint to build both public and private blockchains. The Cosmos team believes there are use cases for both private and public blockchains. They think it’s useless to limit the development just for public networks. And of course, both the private and public blockchains that use Tendermint BFT can connect to each other through the “network of blockchains”. Tendermint transactions are validated through Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus, so each transaction can be validated quite easily. This is different with traditional blockchains that rely on Proof-of-Work (PoW).

The Use Case Of ATOM Token

So, what is exactly the use case of ATOM token in the Cosmos ecosystem? ATOM is not a store of value. Its purpose is only for staking in the Cosmos ecosystem. As the official website stated, the native staking token in the Cosmos network is ATOM while transaction fees themselves can be paid in different types of tokens (not just ATOM).

ATOM In The Crypto Market

At the time of this writing, ATOM is currently sitting on the 22nd position at CoinMarketCap. ATOM is currently trading at ~$2.75. You can find ATOM on the top cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance, OKEx, Huobi, and many others. With more than $225 million daily trading volume, ATOM has enough liquidity for traders who are interested in trading it.

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