Welcome to the second edition of our bi-weekly update! We’ll be using this space to highlight some of the more exciting activities that took place at the Interchain Foundation over the last two weeks. This will include some check-in meetings that occurred with various funding recipients as well as general meetings and goings-on that members of the Interchain ecosystem might find interesting and informative. If any of the updates are especially relevant to what you are working on feel free to drop us a line at hello@interchain.io.
If you missed the last update, check it out at ICF Update — Sept 7.
Core Cosmos SDK contributor, Aleksandr Bezobchuk (AKA Bez), kicked off work on Atlas, the long anticipated Cosmos SDK Module Registry. This work will be similar to the Node Package Manager Registry (npmjs.com) and the Rust Package Registry (crates.io) but for Cosmos SDK modules. It will allow developers to register and organize git repos containing Cosmos SDK modules. The registry will contain relevant metadata like which version of the Cosmos SDK the module relies on and a Command Line Interface to assist in importing the modules into your project. This will make it much easier for developers to keep track of all the various capabilities that are available for the Cosmos flagship blockchain developer kit.
As part of the Q4 2019 funding cycle, Chief Nyamweya & Anne Connelly received a grant to support work on the Trust, a graphic novel that tells the story of Moraa, a young Kenyan woman who learns about blockchain and uses it to transform her community. They’re making great progress and just published their own update at trustgraphicnovel.com. They’ve also recently gotten the first chapter animated if you’d like to see a version of the story in moving images. Take a look here!
Agoric released the Alpha version of their Secure Javascript smart contract platform optimized for use in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications. The Agoric team are the same tech luminaries who originally developed Secure ECMAScript (SES) which allows for secure execution of javascript libraries that prevents the nightmare scenarios we’ve seen from insecure dependencies in the past. Their new platform comes with the following “DeFi legos” out of the box: fungible and non-fungible tokens, atomic swaps, covered calls, simple exchange and automated market makers. Keep an eye out for our extended blog post about the release and take a look at their announcement as well.
Tendermint Inc. has recently launched a Cosmos swag store at shop.cosmos.network. It contains a long list of stylish items accentuated with flair from your favorite ATOM secured network, the Cosmos Hub. Get ahold of the stylish Cosmos dad hat if you want to be seen matching the Interchain Grants Manager (yours truly).
Interchain GmbH, the Berlin based team responsible for Tendermint Core, IBC and stewarding the ICF Funding Program has finalized a partnership with Trail of Bits as a security consultant. They will help run the bug bounty program, coordinate security disclosures across the ecosystem for Cosmos core technologies and advise on a general security strategy. They are long time contributors to the Cosmos ecosystem having performed various audits on the Cosmos SDK so will make short order of getting situated in their new role. We’re looking forward to drawing on their expertise in all things security related in helping us serve the needs of the wider Cosmos ecosystem.
Last September 8th — 12th ran the Toronto based Our Networks conference about the past, present, and future of building our own network infrastructures. The event brings together enthusiasts, hardware and software hackers, researchers, organizers and more to collectively explore creative and critical engagements with the Internet and alternative infrastructures. This year was online and distributed due to current pandemic related travel restrictions and socially distanced protocols. The program can be seen online here and previous years content is available here. Keep an eye out for an update from us when the 2020 content is also available online for anyone who didn’t get to tune in in real time.
The last two weeks have seen an increase in discussion and interest in the topic of user experience and key management across Cosmos related technologies. The ICF has had meetings with various projects including Tendermint Inc., Chainapsis (Keplr), Lunie, Wallet Connect, Confio (CosmWasm/CosmJS), Starname (IOV), B-Harvest, Regen Network and Metamask to discuss long term strategies around improving the user experience of private key management and user authentication in the context of many interconnected blockchains. Some of this conversation relates to the Cosmos Forum post, Cosmos Hub as Universal Wallet, as well as incoming features of the Cosmos SDK as summarized in the GitHub Key Management Meta-issue. Keep an eye out for an upcoming blog post on the topic as well as new grants going towards supporting this important topic.
Cosmos Network co-founder, ICF Vice President and CEO of Informal Systems, Ethan Buchman, was interviewed by Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer and writer on a new episode of Fintech Impact podcast. Fintech Impact is an exploration of the fintech world where they interview different fintech entrepreneurs about what they do, their story, and what their impact is on consumers, incumbents, and the industry is as a whole.
Chainapsis, creators of the Keplr browser extension and authors of ICS-27 Interchain Accounts has made a new release of experimental features for Keplr. These include support for CosmWasm smart contract interactions as well as the ability to use Keplr with arbitrary networks. Arbitrary networks means that while you’re developing your own Cosmos SDK application you can use Keplr to create and sign transactions for that network whether its running locally or remotely — just like you can point Metamask to various EVM compatible networks beyond Mainnet Ethereum. You can take a look at the new features by installing their chrome extension.
Confio, the team building CosmWasm, the WASM smart contract module for the Cosmos SDK and CosmJS, the javascript client library for CosmWasm and the Cosmos SDK, have a slew of updates and upcoming announcements. The first of which is support within CosmJS for hardware wallet Ledger. This will allow you to access a ledger device for signing transactions created and managed by the CosmJS client library. I already mentioned that Keplr is supporting CosmWasm as an experimental feature. Other upcoming news related to the two projects is that v0.11, a new release for CosmWasm is expected soon that contains more flexible error handling and addresses issues related to staking. The CosmWasm testnet, Gaiaflex, will begin voting on Thursday, September 24th to simulate a UnifiDao proposal. There’s also an upcoming beginner class workshop on Tuesday, September 29th on state modeling & buckets.
Informal Systems, core contributor to IBC and Tendermint in Rust, have published a blog post on how they’re working on structuring their company with the goal of adopting a democratic structure that aims to rebalance the power dynamics between capital and labour towards something more sustainable and non-extractive; something that nurtures long term employment and real wealth creation through R&D, entrepreneurship, and innovation. If alternative governance and sustainable corporate structures are your passions then this is a must read.
Source: https://blog.cosmos.network/icf-update-sept-22nd-b437a5d18a15?source=rss—-6c5d35b77e13—4
