Introducing the Hard Spoon

Chjango Unchained ⛓️
Cosmos Ecosystem Blog
2 min readSep 15, 2017

We are deploying the first “hard spoon,” a new technical concept to be rolled out for the first time ever at the launch of the Cosmos mainnet. Along the roadmap, Tendermint team is proposing to deploy a native fee token for Ethermint, which is a Cosmos Hub Zone. The fee token is separate and distinct from the ATOM, the Cosmos staking token.

What is a Hard Spoon

“Hard spoon: a new chain that takes into account state from an existing chain; not to compete, but to provide broad access.” — Jae Kwon

A hard spoon occurs when a new cryptocurrency is minted by replicating the account balances of an existing cryptocurrency. In our case, the Tendermint team will be proposing a hard spoon of Ethereum by taking the account balances of existing Ethereum holders, replicating those values, and pegging them within our Ethermint VM zone. This means that ETH holders will have their coins replicated in this EVM zone and will be redeemable as fee tokens within Ethermint.

“A hard spoon is a meta-protocol on top of a blockchain creating a token that inherits the blockchain’s underlying token’s balances. The idea of a soft spoon would be to create two competing *branches of a protocol* within *the same blockchain.*” — Vitalik Buterin

Critically, a hard spoon is non-contentious. We do not want to compete with or take market share from Ethereum. However, with this hard spoon, we do intend to invite the Ethereum development community onto our platform, as we offer performance boosts that complement, not usurp, Ethereum.

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Published in Cosmos Ecosystem Blog

Cosmos is the internet of blockchains - an ever-expanding ecosystem of interconnected, blockchain-based apps and services. Powered by the Interchain Stack, Cosmos boasts over 100 IBC-enabled chains.

Written by Chjango Unchained ⛓️

Translates hard technical concepts into laymen’s terms. Covers DeFi & Web 3.0. Host of Interchain.fm—validatoooor, investoooor & advisoooor for Cosmos ecosystem

Responses (6)

What are your thoughts?

replicating those values, and pegging them within our Ethermint VM zone

What does pegging mean here? Is there a functional two-way peg between Ethermint and Ethereum?

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Amazing concept. So on which date are you going to take the snapshot?

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Hi! what concerns Ethereum, I would like to know your opinion about ethermium.com. I’m a new in crypto and I’m looking for an exchange platform.

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