Cosmos Co-Founder Jae Kwon Splits $ATOM After Years Of Infighting

Table of Contents

• Kwon Proposes Split, Introduces AtomOne 
• Proposal 848
• Kwon’s Opposition To Proposal 
• Fork Could Be Bullish For ATOM 

Cosmos co-founder Jae Kwon has split ATOM after years of infighting and accusations that the community is conspiring against him. 

After the community passed a proposal to crimp inflation on Cosmos, Kwon announced AtomOne, a minimal fork of the Cosmos Hub application. 

Kwon Proposes Split, Introduces AtomOne 

Jae Kwon may be leaving the Cosmos protocol after announcing AtomOne, a minimal fork of the Cosmos Hub application. Following the passage of Proposal 848, Kwon called on the community members to split the blockchain into two. 

“Now listen up, Cosmonauts. Despite our voting, NWV #848 has ended up passing, something that isn’t too surprising (though it would be good to know whether the later votes came from newly purchased atoms). Now, let’s coordinate a split.”

Kwon called the hard fork AtomOne and called for a plan where the forked chain would support ATOM, along with the native ATOM1 token.

“I believe that the final plan should include an integration of $ATOM and $ATMO/$ATOM1 so that instead of mass selling $ATOM and collapsing it all, we allow participation from $ATOM, but what is in the README can be improved. Tokenomics people take a shot.”

Proposal 848

Kwon and other members of the Cosmos community fundamentally disagree about how much inflation is needed to keep the Cosmos blockchain secure. The Cosmos community voted to narrowly pass Proposal 848 on Saturday, setting ATOM’s inflation rate at 10%, down from the current 14%. Proponents of Proposal 848 argue that Cosmos is overpaying for security by raising the inflation rate to incentivize staking. They have also stated that other Layer-1 chains maintain a high staking demand without inflation, which puts downward pressure on the ATOM price. 

Kwon’s Opposition To Proposal 

Jae Kwon has been opposed to the proposal since its outset and through the two-week voting period. However, members of the community have pointed out that Kwon’s inability to sway the outcome of the proposal in his favor is emblematic of his waning influence within the Cosmos community. Kwon had stated when the proposal was tabled, 

“Every Cosmos “influencer” proposing to decrease the MAX_INFLATION rate of the hub should be listed so everyone avoid these who can’t understand the systemic risk that it introduces. FAIL. IMO, this is a huge red flag and borders on the malicious. Can’t wait for the proposal!”

Kwon had co-founded Cosmos in 2014 but has accused the community of conspiring against him on numerous occasions. 

“Knowing what I know, I believe @jack_zampolin and@zmanian are intentionally socially engineering the Cosmos Hub toward failure in the likeness of LUNA. I know @buchmansteris part of their conspiracy to push me out of Cosmos.”

Fork Could Be Bullish For ATOM 

Some users believe that a potential hard fork could be bullish for Cosmos and ATOM token holders and resolve years of infighting within the Cosmos community. John Galt, an expert on Cosmos and the head of strategy at Stride Zone, stated, 

“A fork would be very bullish. For years, political tension has impeded the development of Cosmos Hub. Most notably, when the ATOM 2.0 proposal was vetoed in the fall of 2022, without Jae’s conservatism, Cosmos Hub could be more innovative.”

Galt also added that he expected the hard fork to lead to a big airdrop for ATOM and a significant increase in trading volume for ATOM and ATOM1 token holders.

 “Jae is calling the new chain AtomOne (ATOM1). Most of the ATOM1 allocation would go to ATOM stakers pro-rata their amount. Unclear if liquid ATOM is included.”

AtomOne’s GitHub page showed that Kwon began working on the idea around two weeks ago, right around the time voting on Proposal 848 began. Kwon has always argued that ATOM was not meant to be used as money, and viewing the token for its financial prospects could compromise the security of the Cosmos Hub. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.