The Cosmos network consists of many independent, parallel blockchains, called zones, each powered by classical Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) consensus protocols like Tendermint (already used by platforms like ErisDB). Some zones act as hubs with respect to other zones, allowing many zones to interoperate through a shared hub. The architecture is a more general application of the Bitcoin sidechains concept, using classic BFT and Proof-of-Stake algorithms, instead of Proof-of-Work.Cosmos can interoperate with multiple other applications and cryptocurrencies, something other blockchains can’t do well. By creating a new zone, you can plug any blockchain system into the Cosmos hub and pass tokens back and forth between those zones, without the need for an intermediary. While the Cosmos Hub is a multi-asset distributed ledger, there is a special native token called the atom. Atoms have three use cases: as a spam-prevention mechanism, as staking tokens, and as a voting mechanism in governance. As a spam prevention mechanism, Atoms are used to pay fees. The fee may be proportional to the amount of computation required by the transaction, similar to Ethereum’s concept of “gas”. Fee distribution is done in-protocol and a protocol specification is described here. As staking tokens, Atoms can be “bonded” in order to earn block rewards. The economic security of the Cosmos Hub is a function of the amount of Atoms staked. The more Atoms that are collateralized, the more “skin” there is at stake and the higher the cost of attacking the network. Thus, the more Atoms there are bonded, the greater the economic security of the network. Atom holders may govern the Cosmos Hub by voting on proposals with their staked Atoms.
MonetaryUnit (MUE) is a fork of Quark. There will be a total of 1 Quadrillion coins (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000 MUE). There is a 40,000,000 MUE pre-mine (0.000004% of total supply) to fund faucet, giveaways, promotions and development of which 9,0000,000 MUE has already been given away or used for development. The release of MonetaryUnit is staggered into 10 different stages. Each “stage” lasts about 18.5 days, and is made up of 40,000 “blocks”. Each block is released every 40 seconds, and a block is the reward for mining the MonetaryUnit network. The block reward changes at every stage, so that the number of coins released per day will change every 18.5 days up until stage 10. At stage 10, the number of coins released per day will always be 86,500 coins per day, or 40 MUE per block. MUE is a coin that has a fair launch with a block reward schedule that increases as time goes on. Here is the block reward schedule: 0.025 MUE reward for first 40,000 blocks (54 MUE/day) 1 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (2160 MUE/day) 2 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (4320 MUE/day) 4 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (8640 MUE/day) 8 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (17280 MUE/day) 10 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (21600 MUE/day) 20 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (43200 MUE/day) 30 MUE reward for next 40,000 blocks (64800 MUE/day) 40 MUE reward thereafter (86400 MUE/day)