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Cryptocurrency News Articles

Polkadot vs Cosmos: Which Multi-Chain Network Is Right for You?

Jan 26, 2025 at 12:00 am

During your time managing crypto, you will have probably heard the term “interoperability”, which has become a popular buzzword in the crypto sphere.

Polkadot vs Cosmos: Which Multi-Chain Network Is Right for You?

During your time handling crypto, you will have likely encountered the term “interoperability”, which has become a popular buzzword in the crypto domain. To put it simply, anyone who’s interested in interoperability is essentially looking for new ways to utilize their tokens and digital assets, and two exciting platforms which allow for this are Polkadot and Cosmos. 

On the surface, these two multi-chain networks might seem more or less identical. After all, they’re both designed to allow individual blockchains to “operate” with one another, something which for a long time had not been possible. 

When getting under the hood though, it’s clear these two were built for different sorts of crypto users, so why don’t we break them each down to see what they offer, and determine if one or the other can help you move to the next step of your crypto journey. 

Table of Contents

What is Polkadot (DOT)?

2016 saw Gavin Wood, the co-founder of Ethereum, leave his company in order to pursue a new project which he believed could be more ambitious in its infrastructure. This would eventually become known as Polkadot, and was built by Gavin with assistance from the Web3 Foundation. 

Polkadot’s entire purpose is to gather individual blockchain networks together, such as BTC and ETH for example, so that they can share data and process transactions between one another. 

Think of the network like a t-shirt. The blockchains which are added to it are like individual polkadots which, while separate, are still all part of one larger network that helps govern them and keeps everything running smoothly. 

How Does Polkadot Work? 

So, what makes Polkadot so special that it can allow blockchains to speak with one another? This all comes down to the parachains – custom-made bridges which pass information between the blockchains and are all hooked up to the relay chain. 

Think of the relay chain as the central hub of Polkadot. It runs everything in the background, and is the central governing body of the entire network. All of Polkadot’s parachains rely on the relay chain to operate, but the parachains themselves still function on their own, so it’s like multiple different workshops all working in the same town square. 

What is Cosmos (ATOM)?

After the rapid emergence of Bitcoin competitors in the early 2010s, software architects Jae Kwon and Ethan Buchman had the bright idea of making a multi-chain service that could allow all of these networks to communicate. 

What resulted was Cosmos, a network of interconnected blockchains that are specifically crafted, designed and governed by developers on the network. 

How Does Cosmos Work?

Cosmos has earned the nickname the “Internet of blockchains”, or interchain for short, as it gathers multiple chains into one network, while still granting them complete freedom and individuality. So in a way, Cosmos is like the internet, and the blockchains are websites – while they’re all on the same page, they do entirely different things, and have their own sets of rules. 

Similar to Polkadot’s relay chain, Cosmos has a central component called the Cosmos Hub, but the difference is that it doesn’t provide governance for all of its blockchains (Zones) on Cosmos. 

So while Cosmos allows blockchains to come together and form their own zones, it doesn’t burden them with any requirements or rules, and lets them operate on their own terms rather than being part of a bigger community. 

Do Polkadot and Cosmos Share any Similarities? 

Polkadot and Cosmos are striving for the same goal; granting investors and developers greater freedom by allowing them to escape from the restraints of the everyday blockchain. 

Blockchain’s have always been known for being isolated, but by being able to share and borrow data from multiple, it means developers can create some truly ambitious projects, and investors can use their crypto in ways not possible before. 

Both have also gained a fair amount of popularity and recognition since their launch. Polkadot is receiving frequent upgrades to this day, and Cosmos has been used by numerous big-time developers including Binance Chain, which was created through the use of the Cosmos network. 

Polkadot vs Cosmos: Key Differences

Polkadot and Cosmos may seem the same, but if this were true, then there wouldn’t be a need for two of them to exist at once, so what actually makes them so different? 

Infrastructure

We already know about the basic multi-chain capabilities of both the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystem, but let’s dig a bit deeper into their infrastructures to understand where they differ. 

While Polkadot uses its parachains to allow blockchains to communicate with another, Cosmos does this through its IBCs (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocols) which provide blockchain interoperability. 

Though they both contain a

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