Evmos (EVMOS) Review:  What Is It and Why the Hype?

When Evmos launched earlier this year, it brought Cosmos, a $3.76 billion blockchain, into direct interaction with Ethereum, the second largest crypto network with the largest collection of decentralized applications, or dApps. We take a look at what the young and growing Evmos protocol represents.

What is Evmos?

Evmos is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) hub that launched on the Cosmos blockchain in April after years of development. The layer one blockchain allows users and developers to deploy smart contracts and assets from Ethereum for use in the Cosmos ecosystem.

EVM is at the heart of the Ethereum network. It gives developers the ability to create smart contracts and decentralized applications, or dApps. Most of the dApps in use today were and are being created via the EVM.

For that reason, blockchains of all sizes “seek to integrate with Ethereum as its robust liquidity and the diversity of its decentralized applications make it the focus protocol.” BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon have all adopted the EVM mechanism.

“Powerful as Cosmos is, it is not compatible with Ethereum,” Arbi Tularov, chief technology officer at gaming metaverse Farcana, told Be[In]Crypto. “This crucial gap is supposed to be closed with the Evmos protocol.”

There are over 20 interoperable blockchains on Cosmos, just not with Ethereum. Until now.

“Evmos may have a unique technology that enhances any project’s ability to fork its code to make use of it in order to link up with Ethereum,” added Tularov. He explained that the ability to integrate with other blockchains makes a protocol more versatile.

Evmos was first conceived in 2016 by software developers Federico Kunze Küllmer, Akash Khosla, and Nic Z. They named the project Ethermint. After its launch in April, Evmos became interoperable with bridges on Ethereum like Nomad, later hacked for $190 million in August.

The integration makes it easy for users to move assets/funds between the two blockchains.

Evmos is also compatible with the inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol, so-called “IP layer of blockchains.” IBC is considered “the safest and most secure decentralized way” to move value across different chains, and within the Cosmos ecosystem itself.

To date, around 14 applications are running on Evmos. That includes DeFi protocols Midas Capital and Diffusion Finance, and non-fungible token outfits Orbital Apes NFT and EvmOS Punks and others, according to the Evmos website.

“Evmos is designed to empower developers,” Kunze Küllmer said in an Oct. 5 interview with analysts Staking Rewards. “Anyone who has built in an EVM environment can easily get started on Evmos using Solidity or Vyper like they’re accustomed to [on Ethereum]…”

Evmos tokenomics

Evmos uses the proof-of-stake (PoS) block validation method based on Tendermint protocol, a computing environment that provi