Cosmos drop inflation rate proposal sparks controversy, founder proposes fork

Recently, the Cosmos community engaged in intense discussions regarding a proposal to adjust the inflation rate of ATOM. The proposal aims to reduce the maximum inflation rate from 20% to 10%, while lowering the staking annual yield from about 19% to approximately 13.4%. This proposal was originally thought to pass smoothly, but it actually sparked unexpected intense controversy and ultimately passed by a very narrow margin.

After the proposal was passed, Jae Kwon, co-founder of Cosmos and Tendermint, expressed his dissatisfaction on social media and proposed the idea of forking ATOM. He believes that the current governance mechanism may not adequately represent the opinions of all token holders. The disagreements between Kwon and other team members have been long-standing, and he had previously resigned due to differences on issues such as governance and project development direction.

Research shows that Cosmos may have paid too high a cost in maintaining network security. A research institution found that even at a maximum inflation rate of 10%, the vast majority of validators can still achieve break-even or profit. Based on this study, a co-founder of a decentralized asset management protocol proposed a plan to drop the maximum inflation rate of ATOM.

The proposal was ultimately passed by a narrow margin. Based on the number of participating ATOMs, the voting rate reached 72.6%, with a support ratio of 41.1%, an opposition ratio of 31.9%, a veto ratio of 6.6%, and an abstention ratio of 20.4%. Among the 173,000 accounts that voted, 164,000 chose to support, accounting for 94.97%. However, the voting results were mainly influenced by validators, with 70.43 million ATOMs coming from validators out of a total of 73.16 million ATOM support votes.

Supporters believe that dropping the inflation rate will drive the adoption of the liquid staking module, increase the liquidity of ATOM, and promote the development of the Cosmos DeFi ecosystem. They also point out that this strategy may enhance the market value of ATOM, benefiting long-term investors.

Opponents worry that dropping the inflation rate may reduce users' motivation to stake ATOM, affecting network security. Some believe this could lead to further concentration of ATOM holdings, which would be detrimental to small holders. Others are concerned that this change may bring uncertainty to the market.

From the voting results, it seems that small holders are more inclined to support proposals to drop the inflation rate. Among voting accounts holding less than 5000 ATOM, the number of supporting accounts far exceeds that of opposing accounts; for those holding more than 5000 ATOM, the number of supporting accounts is about twice that of opposing accounts.

The controversy surrounding this proposal reveals the challenges faced by the Cosmos community in balancing different interests in decentralized governance. It also reminds us that when engaging in delegated staking, in addition to considering factors such as yield and the commission rates charged by validators, we must also consider whether the interests of the validator align with our own. If they do not align, users can also choose to vote independently to override the validator's vote.