The best-known chains built with Cosmos technology include the Cosmos Hub, dYdX Chain, Injective, Celestia and Cronos. Banks also use it: Wells Fargo uses Cosmos ledger technology for its tok
The best-known chains built with Cosmos technology include the Cosmos Hub, dYdX Chain, Injective, Celestia and Cronos. Banks also use it: Wells Fargo uses Cosmos ledger technology for its tokenized deposit project.
As of September 2026, the Cosmos SDK’s maintainers count more than 200 chains built with it in production. Each chain runs its own validators and token, and many connect to each other through a messaging standard called IBC.
What is Cosmos Technology?
Cosmos is not a single blockchain. It is a set of open-source tools that teams use to build their own chains, called appchains. An appchain is a blockchain built for one application, such as an exchange.
The stack has three main parts:
- Cosmos SDK: A framework written in Go. It gives developers ready-made modules for accounts, staking, governance and token transfers, so they only write the parts that make their chain different.
- CometBFT: The consensus engine, which is the software that gets validators to agree on each block. It was forked from Tendermint Core in February 2023.
- IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication): The standard Cosmos chains use to send tokens and messages to each other. It uses light clients, which are small programs that check another chain’s proofs, plus relayers that carry the data between chains.
IBC sees steady use. Map of Zones counted about 4 million IBC transfers worth roughly $2.2 billion across 90 active chains in the 30 days to September 28, 2026.
Which Famous Chains Are Built With Cosmos?
Several large networks run on the Cosmos SDK today, each for a different purpose.
Cosmos Hub
The Cosmos Hub has been live since March 13, 2019. Its token, ATOM, is staked to secure the Hub and used for governance votes.
Stakers approved the Gaia v29 upgrade with 99.41% support and 49.59% turnout. The upgrade was scheduled for block 33,618,500 on October 28. It removes the x/params module and moves the Hub from Cosmos SDK v0.53.4 to v0.53.8. On October 30, Gaia developers began preparing a follow-up v29.1.0 upgrade that runs module migrations.
dYdX Chain
dYdX is a perpetual futures exchange that moved from an Ethereum layer 2 to its own blockchain. In June 2022, the team said no existing chain could handle the throughput its order book needed. It built a chain with the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT, which launched in October 2023, and wound down its old layer-2 exchange on October 28, 2024. The order book runs off-chain for speed, while trades settle on-chain. DYDX stakers earn a share of protocol fees paid in USDC.
Injective
Injective is a Cosmos SDK chain built around a native orderbook module, a built-in component for matching buy and sell orders. It also plays a growing role in the ecosystem’s stablecoin supply.
Circle is ending its support for Noble, the Cosmos chain that issued USDC. New USDC minting on Noble through Circle Mint stopped on October 13, 2026, and Circle plans to pause the Noble USDC contract and all CCTP routes on January 12, 2027.
On September 10, 2026, the Cosmos ecosystem chose Circle’s native USDC on Injective, called USDC.inj, as the replacement. The dYdX Foundation is working to make USDC.inj its sole eligible trading collateral but has not given a completion date, and it has told users not to send USDC.inj to dYdX until support is confirmed live.
Celestia
Celestia is a modular blockchain network that provides data availability (DA) for other chains, such as rollups. It is built with its own fork of the Cosmos SDK, which it has maintained since 2021.
On October 15, 2026, Celestia moved that fork into a standalone GitHub repository with its full history. Its consensus node, celestia-core, is a fork of CometBFT. On October 20, Binary Builders, a former core maintainer team of the Cosmos SDK, announced it was shutting down, and most of its members joined Celestia.
Cronos EVM is an Ethereum-compatible chain built with the Cosmos SDK and Ethermint, and it has been live since November 8, 2021. It is part of the Crypto(.)com-linked Cronos family, which also includes the Cronos POS Chain, another Cosmos SDK chain used for CRO staking. Cosmos Labs has named Cronos as a performance partner, citing its early results with BlockSTM, a parallel transaction processing system the team is adding to the Cosmos SDK.
How Are Banks Using Cosmos?
Cosmos tools are also being used by banks and large financial firms:
- Wells Fargo: In September 2026, the bank launched tokenized deposit services for corporate clients, starting with USD-to-GBP transfers for a limited group. Cosmos chief commercial officer Eran Barak said Wells Fargo uses Cosmos ledger technology for the project. A tokenized deposit is a bank deposit recorded on a blockchain that stays backed by the issuing bank.
- Progmat: The Japanese megabank consortium chose Cosmos for tokenized deposits.
- USDF Consortium: This US regional banking network for tokenized deposits runs on Cosmos.
- Ripple: The XRPL EVM Sidechain, developed by Peersyst in partnership with Ripple, is a Cosmos SDK chain secured by CometBFT. It runs Cosmos EVM, an EVM implementation built for the Cosmos SDK that lets the chain execute Ethereum-style smart contracts.
Which Chains Have Left Cosmos?
Not every chain stays. Sei, which was originally built with the Cosmos SDK, moved to an EVM-only design under SIP-3, a proposal its community approved in May 2025. Sei Labs set June 15, 2026 as the deadline for exchanges to move holdings to EVM addresses before Cosmos, CosmWasm and IBC functions were deprecated.
Akash Network, a decentralized cloud computing platform, is voting on Proposal #346 to move from its Cosmos chain to Solana. Support stood at about 98.29% on October 27, and voting closes on November 2 at 15:02 UTC. Akash cited operating costs under load as one of its main reasons for choosing Solana.
Conclusion
Cosmos technology runs more than 200 production chains, including the Cosmos Hub, dYdX Chain, Injective, Celestia and Cronos. The Cosmos SDK supplies the modules, CometBFT handles consensus and IBC moves tokens between about 90 active chains. Banks such as Wells Fargo and the Progmat consortium use it for tokenized deposits. Sei has left the stack and Akash is voting to leave, while ATOM trades near $1.47.
Resources
- Banxa Learn: What is Cosmos (ATOM)? How its chains connect
- Cosmos Network Blog: The Cosmos Stack Roadmap for 2026
- Cosmos Network: Tokenized deposits for financial institutions
- NullTX: Cosmos Hub approves Gaia v29 with 99.41% support
- Cosmos Gaia on GitHub: Add v29.1.0 upgrade handler
- CoinMarketCap Analysis: Latest Cosmos (ATOM) price analysis
- CoinMarketCap: What is dYdX (DYDX) and how does it work?
- Bitcoin.com: What is dYdX?
- Ryder Blog: Cosmos (ATOM) in 2026: IBC and the interchain ecosystem
- Celestia on GitHub: Celestia’s standalone Cosmos SDK repository
- KuCoin News: Cosmos SDK core team Binary Builders shuts down
- Metlabs: Cosmos appchains, Cosmos SDK and IBC
- TokenMinds: Ripple’s EVM sidechain on Cosmos
- BigGo Finance: Wells Fargo tokenized deposits and stablecoin plans
- Blockonomi: Sei Labs sets June 15 deadline for exchange EVM migration
- TokenPost: Akash governance vote proposes moving network to Solana
- Blockchain.News: ATOM price prediction, $1.57 support in the crosshairs