The Cosmos Hub’s smart contract rollout has hit a dead end, forcing ecosystem builders to rethink their strategies.
Cosmos, a blockchain network focused on interoperability between independent chains, said Wednesday it would scrap plans to bring smart contracts to the Cosmos Hub — just three months after first unveiling the idea — citing weak developer demand and high implementation costs.
The move marks a retreat from efforts to turn the Hub into a multichain smart contract platform that was intended to support decentralized applications natively, rather than relying on other Cosmos-based chains.
In a July 16 update on X, the Cosmos team said it is “pausing the launch of an EVM platform on the Cosmos Hub, citing “high costs,” potential to “disrupt the UX for the Hub’s most important users,” and the need for “massive resources and time to catch up with existing L1 ecosystems.”
Developers who had planned to launch smart contracts on the Hub are now being encouraged to build on other Cosmos SDK-based chains or sovereign EVM chains.
Same Problems, Different Place
The reversal has reignited long-running frustrations among Cosmos builders. Simon Chadwick, a former contributor to a Cosmos-based project, announced this week that his team was exiting the ecosystem after years of struggling to gain traction.
“It was like playing on constant hard mode,” he wrote on X. “We just felt stuck.” Chadwick pointed to liquidity, user distribution, and developer support as key challenges for apps building on Cosmos. While he praised Cosmos teams like Neutron and ICL, he said many projects had been “pushing a boulder uphill” since the collapse of Terra in 2022.
“I know we aren’t the only ones leaving, some really top-tier builders went through similar, where they should realistically be top apps in the space by now,” Chadwick added.
Chadwick’s comments triggered a response from the team behind Cosmos. Maghnus Mareneck, co-CEO of Interchain Labs — the primary engineering organization that maintains the Cosmos Hub — dismissed Chadwick’s critique as “doomposting,” arguing that any ecosystem faces similar hurdles.
“Same problems, different place,” he said, adding that “winners win anywhere.” But Chadwick quickly pushed back, saying his view was realistic, not cynical: “How many ‘winners’ are there on Cosmos?” he asked, pointing out that even well-known projects like Stride haven’t had a major breakthrough yet.
Mareneck told The Defiant that by focusing on onboarding established businesses to Cosmos, the team can “accelerate the traction we’ve seen in 2025, adding Ondo, Ripple, Ripple, Babylon, TAC, and Stable as new Cosmos chains in the IBC ecosystem.”
“The opportunity here is much larger than launching a new EVM on the Cosmos Hub, which would compete on incentives for the same mercenary builders and users,” he explained.
Hard Decisions
Cosmos’ decision to halt plans for smart contract support caught several blockchain developers off guard. Stride, the largest liquid staking platform on Cosmos with nearly $20 million in TVL, was among those directly affected.
“On Wednesday, Stride was among the many teams who learned that the ICL was stepping away from its EVM plans for the Hub,” the team said in an X post. “Unfortunately, this means the Stride DEX can no longer launch on the Cosmos Hub.”
The team added they are now exploring alternative deployment options, including the possibility of launching Stride DEX “on a new chain.”
Stride co-founder Aidan said the team had been working closely with ICL for months and had completed roughly 80% of the DEX. “That said, I don’t hold it against the ICL. I personally think the EVM was the best path to ATOM value accrual, and I wish they could have run this experiment with less collateral damage to Stride. But I understand that they’re also just people trying to make hard decisions under uncertainty,” Aidan added in an X post.
Cosmos’ ATOM token has lagged well behind other Layer 1 ecosystems this cycle. Though it still commands a $2.3 billion valuation, the token remains nearly 90% below its all-time high of $44.45.
Daniel Olshansky, CTO of Grove — a blockchain infrastructure provider — and a vocal supporter of the Cosmos stack, acknowledged in an X post that Cosmos is not for everyone, suggesting Solana for launching DeFi protocols or memecoins, and EVM chains for wallets or stablecoins.
For those focused on building infrastructure that combines vertical integration and horizontal interoperability, Olshansky suggested that Cosmos remains a strong option.
