Atom Accelerator Puts Weight Behind CosmWasm Coalition, Offers Matching Funding with Neutron
Zug, Switzerland, December 17th, 2024, Chainwire
Atom Accelerator (AADAO), a governance-mandated DAO of the Cosmos Hub, has announced $250,000 funding support to Confio for the continued development and maintenance of CosmWasm throughout 2025. This funding is being matched by Neutron, the integrated application network in Cosmos, with a further $250,000.
CosmWasm, developed by Confio since 2020, powers smart contract functionality for nearly 100 chains, enabling developers to create decentralized applications (dApps) that operate seamlessly across the interchain. In the past 12 months, contracts built with CosmWasm in the Cosmos ecosystem generated over $5.7 million in fees. Despite its widespread adoption, the Interchain Foundation has thus far been the primary funder for the development and maintenance of Cosmwasm. Following organizational restructuring at the Interchain Foundation (ICF), Confio’s funding for the year 2025 has been drastically reduced.
“CosmWasm is a critical resource for the Cosmos ecosystem, underpinning many of the applications and chains that drive value to the interchain,” said AADAO contributors. “This proposal represents a collaborative effort to ensure its longevity and continued impact.”
The contributions form the foundation of the CosmWasm Coalition initiative aimed at raising the approximately $2 million required to maintain and develop CosmWasm in 2025. The funds will enable Confio’s team to continue delivering on critical functions, including security research and incident response, feature development and performance optimization, documentation and developer support, SDK compatibility maintenance, and testing and developer experience (DevX) tooling improvements. This initiative builds on the Cosmos Hub’s previous support for CosmWasm, including the successful allocation of $1.25 million under Proposal #103 in March 2023.
The Cosmos Hub relies on CosmWasm for permissioned smart contract capabilities, making its continued maintenance essential to the Hub’s operations and future upgrades. Many consumer chains utilizing the Hub’s Interchain Security have built their infrastructure on CosmWasm, making the framework vital to sustaining and expanding the ecosystem. By committing to early funding, the Cosmos Hub secures priority consideration for its technical needs and those of its consumer chains in Confio’s development roadmap.
By taking the first step in committing funding, AADAO and Neutron hope that their initiative will encourage additional contributions from other ecosystem stakeholders, ensuring the financial stability of CosmWasm and the broader interchain ecosystem.
About Atom Accelerator DAO (AADAO)
Atom Accelerator DAO (AADAO) is a governance-mandated DAO of the Cosmos Hub. They have been formed and mandated to drive value for the Cosmos Hub & ATOM, supporting initiatives that either directly create economic impact or produce value that can drive its growth. From this, their current primary mandates are public grants & venture grants.
Atom Accelerator’s venture arm strategically invests in promising early-stage web3 founders and startups both within and outside of the Cosmos Hub’s ecosystem. As experts within the Cosmos ecosystem, Atom Accelerator offers expertise, guidance, and support while driving value toward ATOM.