2024 Batch #1 New Grants Awarded
The Atom Accelerator DAO (AADAO) is proud to announce the four recipients of 2024’s first batch of grants - Asteroid Protocol, Everstake, Cosmoverse and Lava Network.
Each of these projects plays a pivotal role in advancing the Cosmos Hub's infrastructure and ecosystem. They focus on different aspects such as novel use of data storage, public RPC infrastructure, and community engagement through a large-scale conference. These initiatives are set to enhance the Cosmos Hub's functionality, accessibility, and visibility.
In the blog below, we provide a short summary of each of the projects. Over the coming weeks, we will take a deeper dive into each project. Stay tuned to our blog for more information.
Asteroid Protocol
Asteroid Protocol aims to establish the Cosmos Hub as a permanent data storage layer, facilitating DeFi activities like minting and swapping NFTs and fungible tokens. By embedding data on the Hub, Asteroid leverages existing infrastructure to expand the Hub's capabilities without compromising security.
The grant’s goals include integrating advanced functionality in NFT and CFT20 marketplaces - from the ability to launch NFT collections to floor-sweeping functionality; expanding interoperability through cross-chain transfers of NFTs and CFT20s; and introducing novel experiments to advance activity on the Hub. We’ll share more on this in a later blog.
Asteroid's work could significantly increase the activity on the Cosmos Hub and expand on its current use cases without requiring core protocol engineering. As of the end of February ’24, Asteroid Protocol has produced more than 4.5 million transactions on the Cosmos Hub and accounted for roughly 10-15% of all transactions, with occasional spikes to over 50%.
Visit Asteroid Protocol’s website or follow them on X.
Everstake
Airdrops have long been recognized as a pivotal value driver for ATOM stakers. However, the exact extent of their impact has remained elusive—until now.
Everstake is set to develop an “Atom Value Accural” tracker. This essential tool will comprehensively illustrate and continuously track the growth in value derived from staking ATOM, alongside capturing all the airdrops ATOM stakers have qualified for.
While this will be delivered as a simple-to-use dashboard, with our firm commitment to proliferate positive data about the Cosmos Hub, Everstake’s grant will include delivery of API endpoints - allowing wallets, platforms and other UIs to access and make visible this data on other dashboards across Cosmos and in other ecosystems.
Visit the Everstake website or follow them on X.
Cosmoverse
Cosmoverse is the single largest conference for the entire Cosmos ecosystem, with its 2024 event aiming to attract over 2000 attendees.
While the Cosmos Hub is the chain that birthed the ecosystem, our grant aims to bring further exposure to the Cosmos Hub and its direct ecosystem, the Atom Economic Zone (AEZ), helping to establish the Hub as the center of the wider ecosystem.
The grant will promote the Cosmos Hub, its technology and innovation, and the AEZ projects that are driving value to the Hub - before, after, and at the conference. With an estimated reach of 5 million through press and social placements, along with a further 100k viewers of the online stream of the event, this grant is set to propel the Cosmos Hub’s visibility.
Visit the Cosmoverse website or follow them on X.
Lava Network
Lava Network addresses the fragmentation and unreliability of public RPC services, a major pain point for almost all blockchains, including the Cosmos Hub.
Lava Network’s incentivized Public RPC model aims to provide fast, reliable, and scalable access to the Cosmos Hub’s data. By consolidating several top RPC providers into a single endpoint, Lava ensures performant access to data, constant availability and cost efficiency for the user.
Lava’s services will provide fast and reliable RPC for public contributors who cannot afford dedicated RPC services by premium providers. Our grant to fund this critical public infrastructure will enable innovative dApps, dashboards and other use cases to flourish without being held back by unreliable RPC endpoints.
Visit the Lava Network’s website or follow them on X.
Are you driving value to the Cosmos Hub?
These four projects funded by the AADAO — Asteroid Protocol, Lava Network, and Cosmoverse — represent strategic efforts to enhance the Cosmos Hub's infrastructure, activity and use cases. They are expected to contribute significantly to the Hub's growth, offering practical solutions to current challenges and opening new avenues for development and collaboration within the ecosystem.
If you are working on a project that could help drive value for the Hub, be sure to check out our Funding Themes and apply for a grant.
About the Atom Accelerator DAO
AADAO is a governance-mandated DAO of the Cosmos Hub. We have been formed and mandated to drive value for the Cosmos Hub, supporting initiatives that either directly create economic impact or produce value that can drive its growth.
In 2023, we deployed $3.8 million in grants to 39 recipients - resulting in, among other things - a $22m USD airdrop to the Community Pool, an AEZ Accelerator program to expand the AEZ, a successful hackathon with 42 project submissions bringing innovations to the AEZ - and many other key initiatives. Read about them in our 2023 Impact Report.