Alarms rang throughout the Cosmos ecosystem after a statement made by Anoma co-creator Christopher Goes on January 10th. The developer claimed that the network was facing “device extinction”.
According to Mr. Goes, Current model fails to retain talent and capital against more aggressive competitors offering better incentives.
Cosmos was born with the ambitious promise of becoming the “Internet of Blockchains.” Its architecture allows developers to have complete sovereignty and create their own network (AppChain) connected to a common center. For many years, this was the gold standard for interoperability. But Ghose asserts that that dream is fading as projects take refuge in other ecosystems.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) activity in Cosmos is showing signs of drying up. Iconic projects like Penumbra Business has been suspended. Others include Osmosis, a major ecological exchange. Works under maintenance profile While diversifying resources. Even Noble Networks, which is responsible for implementing native USDC, has begun to consider integration outside of Cosmos’ original boundaries.
This “DeFi abandonment” trend suggests that the AppChain model faces unsustainable operating costs. Maintaining your own infrastructure, dedicated validators, and sovereign security is expensive. Many teams have found that launching Layer 2 (L2) on Ethereum or using the speed of Solana is more efficient than maintaining a standalone chain on the Cosmos network.
Does death have a price?
The performance of Cosmos Hub’s native token, ATOM, reflects this pessimism of Goes. Although the cryptocurrency market experienced a partial recovery in the altcoin space in 2025, ATOM remains stagnant. The company is trading around $2.60, a far cry from its all-time high of over $44. The company’s lack of direct business that derives value from networks that use its technology continues to be its primary burden.
Despite previous efforts such as Reduce token issuance to reduce inflation According to a report by CriptoNoticias, in order to make it more attractive, the market does not react. USDT’s expansion into Cosmos and the promotion of networks like Kava provided a temporary respite, but the structural trend remained the same.
Counterargument: Integration, not death.
Not everyone shares the funeral diagnosis. A specialized Steady Crypto account maintains: These criticisms are just an attempt to influence (engagement bait). They argue that the cosmos is not disappearing, but is being consolidated. The Interchain Foundation (ICF) approach currently prioritizes the value of ATOM and large enterprise adoption over the retail market.
Roadmap to 2026 We aim for the performance of 5.000TPS (transactions per second) and 500 ms blocks. Major institutional names support this infrastructure.
- Ondo Finance acquired Strangelove and built its own RWA chain on top of Cosmos.
- Mortgage giant Figure is operating on the Cosmos stack after its IPO.
- he XRPL EVM Ripple uses the DNA of the Cosmos SDK for its operation.
Lessons from other ecosystems
Cosmos is not the first giant to face the story of death. EOS and Algorand experienced similar cycles of developer abandonment and price declines after promising innovations. The difference is that Cosmos’ technology (SDK and IBC) is also widely used by competitors such as the Ethereum sidechain and the Celestia ecosystem.
The “death” Goes describes seems to refer to a universe of experimental apps and airdrops. In its place will emerge a silent cosmos of financial rails customized for financial institutions. The success of ATOM will depend on whether it can successfully channel fees from these new giants to its holders, or whether it remains a forgotten token and great technology.
