According to an announcement made by the Interchain Foundation (ICF) on February 20 in a Medium post, the nonprofit organization that was responsible for the creation of the Cosmos (ATOM) interblockchain communications (IBC) ecosystem has committed to spending approximately $40 million in 2023 to develop its core infrastructure and applications. Around fifty different blockchains, such as Tendermint Core (which has since been renamed CometBFT), Cosmos SDK, Cosmos Hub, and the IBC protocol, all make use of the Interchain Stack.
“Throughout the course of the year, we plan to engage additional teams to offer more manageable tasks that are more specifically defined within each area of work. These contracts will be used either to augment the work of the teams listed below or to serve the requirements of those teams as they develop over the year.
CosmWasm and Ethermint are two technologies that, according to the company, have become the “foundations of smart contract and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchains.” The Internet Commerce Foundation (ICF) is helping to fund the development of both of these technologies.
The International Community Foundation (ICF) will provide funding for initiatives that, in addition to fundamental infrastructure, encourage the adoption and use cases of Cosmos. These include integration with other blockchain technologies such as Polkadot and Hyper Ledger, as well as initiatives such as the Interchain Developer Academy, the Cosmos Developer Portal, and the Interchain Builders Program. Other similar programs include the Cosmos Developer Portal.
A “large backlog of applications” led to the suspension of the ICF’s public Small Grants Program in 2018, however the organization has said that it has every intention of resuming operations of the program in 2023.
It intends to restart the program in due time and is inviting teams to seek out to the Builders Program for mentoring and help in areas unrelated to finances. For the time being, the ICF advises software developers to make use of its ATOM delegation program in order to get access to contribution benefits.