Developers may soon be able to port Solana Web3 applications to the Cosmos ecosystem, bringing new users to these applications and providing broader uses for the Cosmos blockchain. According to a March 30 announcement by developers of the Cosmos-based network Injective (INJ), the team released a Layer 2 testnet using Solana’s Sea Level Virtual Machine (SVM). This means that some Solana developers can now test their applications for use in the Cosmos ecosystem without changing the programming language or tools used.
In conversation with Cointelegraph, an Injective representative said the name of the new network is “Cascade,” and it uses optimistic rollup technology. According to the announcement, the new layer was created with the help of Eclipse, a company that provides developers with custom zero-knowledge and optimistic rollups. Eric Chen, co-founder and CEO of Injective Labs, said the integration should help both the Solana developer community and Cosmos users:
"This new aggregation of SVMs in the Cosmos IBC world will not only enable Solana developers to deploy their DApps on Injective, but will also create more opportunities for users to experience the best of Web3 DApps in one integrated network. "
Injective says the testnet is currently private, but it will offer a “limited number of slots exclusively for selected Solana developers” starting March 30. According to a report from Alchemy, the number of active Solana development teams in Q3 2022 will grow by more than 1,000% year-over-year. According to Web3 analytics firm DappRadar, the network hosts multiple applications with more than 2,000 unique users, including non-fungible token marketplace Magic Eden and DeFi protocol MeanFi.
However, Solana Web3 applications are written to work with the Solana SVM, and few networks other than Solana itself use it. This makes it difficult for Solana developers to port their applications to other networks without extensive rewriting. Eclipse also created an SVM rollup for Polygon on February 23rd.
Cosmos is a set of interconnected blockchain networks developed using the same consensus engine and software development kit. They are connected via the Cosmos inter-blockchain communication protocol (IBC), whereby assets on one network can be transferred to other networks within the Cosmos ecosystem. Injective is one of the networks that make up this ecosystem, and the new SVM rollup is layer 2 of Injective.
Injective Labs isn’t the only company trying to make Solana apps Cosmos-compatible. Nitro Labs also announced the development of an SVM rollup for the Sei network in September and released a decentralized exchange for its testnet in February.
The Cosmos ecosystem has been growing over the past two years. On March 11th, Cosmos Hub governance approved the V9-Lambda upgrade to begin implementing Interchain Security (ICS), allowing ecosystem members to share verification resources. On March 29, Circle announced that it would launch USDC for Cosmos via the Noble Network.
