Initia: $7.5 million in funding raised from former Terra and Cosmos developers

The former developers of Terra and Cosmos have secured a $7.5 million funding for the blockchain Initia, specialized in rollups, with the launch scheduled for the second quarter.

The funding for Initia was led by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC.

The team boasts significant expertise in the Terra and Cosmos ecosystems. Let’s see all the details below.

The financing for Initia’s growth by Terra and Cosmos

As anticipated, a consortium of former developers from Terra and Cosmos has secured a $7.5 million funding for Initia, a blockchain platform natively designed to support various Layer 2 networks.

The fundraising was conducted by Delphi Ventures and Hack VC, with the participation of Nascent, Figment Capital, Big Brain, and A.Capital.

Among the investors there were also well-known cryptocurrency traders like Cobie, DCF God, the co-founder of Split Capital Zaheer Ebtikar, Fiskantes and WSB Mod. Nick White, COO of Celestia, also participated as an ‘angel investor’.

The funding was structured as a SAFE agreement with a token warrant, and although the team did not disclose a specific valuation, they indicated that it was a nine-figure amount.

Currently, Initia is operating on a closed test network, with some projects already developing DeFi applications on the test network. 

It is expected that the launch of an incentivized testnet will take place at the beginning of April, and once any issues are resolved, the project will release its mainnet, presumably in the second quarter.

Initia revolutionizes incentivization and liquidity in the world of layer 2 networks

Initia, a platform designed from the beginning to support Layer 2 networks, is introducing an innovative approach to incentivize activity on its network. 

An extensive portion of its token supply will be allocated to a monthly incentive program, led by a vote on the Layer 1 blockchain of Initia. 

The governance token of the network, called INIT, will be used to decide the distribution of tokens among layer 2 networks, allowing voters to establish key performance goals.

Network developers will be able to earn a commission from the distribution of these tokens, making the process similar to a decentralized grant program.

Another key element of Initia is the “embedded liquidity,” which provides native liquidity at the core of the network. This simplifies token exchanges when users move between layer 2 networks. 

By using this embedded liquidity, Initia creates an exchange hub, allowing users to pay transaction fees on Layer 1 with different tokens. 

On Layer 2 networks, on the other hand, fees can be paid in any token. Initia aims to create a flexible and incentivized ecosystem, revolutionizing the concept of liquidity and incentives in Layer 2 networks.

The fork of Cosmos Hub and the birth of GovGen

Recently, the Cosmos Hub community surprisingly approved the controversial Proposal 848. 

Which has reduced the maximum inflation rate of the native token ATOM from 10% to 20%, despite expectations indicating a possible failure. The proposal was accepted with 41.1% of the votes, with 38.5% opposition. 

This unexpected change led Cosmos co-founder, Jae Kwon, to fork Cosmos Hub, creating AtomOne and launching GovGen to decentralize the decision-making process on the genesis of AtomOne.

All in Bits, the company managed by Kwon, argues that Proposal 848 “puts ATOM on the path to becoming a monetary token”, representing a significant change from the established design of the staking token ATOM.

According to Kwon, the voting results indicate that a significant minority wants to preserve the security properties of the Cosmos Hub staking model.

A blog post by All in Bits highlighted that Proposal 848 could “threaten” the “fundamental pillars” of Cosmos, leading a significant minority to believe that it puts the ecosystem’s security at risk, justifying the need for a fork. 

However, AtomOne does not aim to compete with Cosmos Hub, but to offer a bridge to make Cosmos Hub safer, according to All in Bits (AIB).