Buy Cosmos (ATOM)

What is Cosmos (ATOM)?

Cosmos is positioning itself as a project that addresses some of the "toughest problems" facing the blockchain industry. It aims to offer an alternative to "slow, expensive, unscalable and environmentally damaging" proof-of-work protocols such as those used in bitcoin. How? Through an ecosystem of interconnected blockchains.

Among the project's other goals is to make blockchain technology simpler and easier for developers through a modular structure that simplifies decentralised applications. Last but not least, the blockchain communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other. By doing so, it prevents further fragmentation of the industry.

Cosmos' origins date back to 2014, when Tendermint, one of the network's major players, was founded. The official Cosmos white paper was published in 2016, and token sales took place a year later.

ATOM tokens are earned using a hybrid betting confirmation algorithm, and they are used to maintain the security of Cosmos Hub, the project's flagship blockchain. This cryptocurrency also plays a role in managing the network.

Who created Cosmos?

The co-founders of Tendermint, the Cosmos ecosystem guide, were Je Kwon, Zarko Milosevic and Ethan Backman. Although Kwon is still listed as chief architect, he stepped down as CEO in 2020. He claims to still be involved in the project, but has mainly focused on other initiatives.

His place as CEO of Tendermint has been taken by Peng Joon, and the entire board of directors has been significantly refreshed. Their goals include improving the experience for developers, building an enthusiastic community for Cosmos, and creating educational resources to let more people learn what the network is capable of.

What's special about Cosmos?

The most important challenge for part of the community in the crypto industry has to do with the level of fragmentation seen in blockchain networks. There are hundreds of them, but very few of them can communicate with each other. Cosmos wants to turn the industry upside down by making this possible.

Cosmos is described as "blockchain 3.0" and, as we've said before, its main goal is to make the infrastructure easy to use. To do this, Cosmos' development toolkit focuses on modularity. This makes it easy to build a network using existing code snippets. In the long term, even complex applications are expected to be easy to build with it as a result.

Scalability is another priority of Cosmos. It can process significantly more transactions per second than the old-fashioned Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains. 

If blockchain ever becomes widespread, it will need to handle demand and workload as well as existing payment companies, and maybe even better.

How is the Cosmos network secured?

As mentioned earlier, Cosmos uses a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm. Validator nodes that "bet" more ATOM tokens are more likely to be selected for transaction validation and rewards. Nodes that act dishonestly are penalized. They may end up losing the tokens they had in their "bet".

Where to buy Cosmos (ATOM) in Malaysia?

No matter how long you've been involved with cryptocurrencies, you probably know that there are two main ways to trade digital coins - a broker and an exchange. But even for those with extensive experience in blockchain solutions, the difference between a crypto exchange and a broker is not always obvious.

Crypto exchange or broker?

To begin with, we note the obvious similarity with the principle of a regular exchange.

Clients of a cryptocurrency exchange buy and sell both cryptocurrencies and fiat.

In this model, the exchange acts as an intermediary who arranges the transaction and charges a fee for this service.

There are two traditional ways to use cryptocurrency exchanges. The first is buying cryptocurrencies for fiat, the second is exchanging some cryptocurrencies for others, such as BTC for ETH.

Different exchanges offer different trading pairs, and it is up to the trader to decide where it is more profitable to trade. Let's imagine a situation where an investor deposits his account in USD on an exchange. In this case, the initial selection of instruments for trading will be limited to pairs tied to the US dollar, such as BTC/USD or ETH/USD.

A cryptocurrency exchange is already a traditional way to exchange cryptocurrencies, especially convenient for transactions with small amounts of funds.

A cryptocurrency broker is an intermediary between traders and the market.

Those who use the broker's services to conduct trades deposit funds (fiat or cryptocurrency) into the broker's account and then use the various products it provides. The trader is not limited to trading only those pairs that are linked to the currency of his deposit - he can use any others. The broker will find a counterparty to carry out the necessary transaction, or he will act in this role and close the deal.

Let us look at a simple example. A client transfers his bitcoins to a broker, but plans to trade Ethereum/XRP with leverage. That is, the client can trade the selected pair immediately for the amount of bitcoins he has deposited in his account, taking into account the leverage used. If he wanted to conduct a similar operation on a cryptocurrency exchange, he would first have to exchange his bitcoins for ethereums.

The process of trading cryptocurrency on an exchange is quite simple. Most exchanges use order stacks, through which you can place a limit trade order as well as initiate a market order. The liquidity of each exchange depends on its market cap. The higher the liquidity, the smaller the spread between buy and sell orders.

Most exchanges offer only basic functions, which, however, are sufficient for the average user. A small number of specialized exchanges offer trading instruments with high leverage, such as futures or open-ended swaps.

The biggest advantage of an exchange is the ability to trade a wide range of cryptocurrencies.

Brokers provide additional tools for margin trading, such as Contract for Difference (CFD). Also brokerage platforms often offer clients special tools, which help users in the process of trading. 

They include technical analysis tools, such as various indicators, moving averages and so on, and even automatic trading strategies and robots. They are all aimed at managing risk and improving trading results.

If a client trades CFDs, leverage can be used to enhance financial performance. For example, if the leverage of the selected cryptocurrency is 1:2, and the price moves by 5%, the CFD trader will make a 10% profit or, conversely, will lose 10%. It all depends on the price movement direction and the selected position type. This means that when trading CFDs, you can both quickly earn a large sum of money, and quickly lose it. 

Also, crypto brokers provide tighter spreads than crypto exchanges. This is the main reason for their popularity, especially among those involved in margin trading.

How to invest safely in Cosmos in Malaysia?

Of course you want to invest in cosmos safely, let's break it down.

Have you heard about the recent hack of KuCoin exchange? And about the hack of HitBTC or Mt.Gox exchange? As many of you know, crypto exchanges are being hacked all over the world, and even a giant like Binance has been targeted by hackers and scammers - Binance KYC was leaked in 2019.

Cryptocurrency exchanges are and will continue to be vulnerable to hacker attacks. This does not mean that cryptocurrency brokers cannot be hacked or their funds cannot be stolen. The difference is that brokers are regulated by the authorities, so their customers' deposits are protected to some extent by an insurance system. Compensation in case of hacking and theft of funds is not a bad advantage in the eyes of users who come from unregulated environment of crypto exchanges, where at times it is impossible even to determine the localization of the site.

Usually, competent authorities control and check brokers' activity, which already increases their credibility. A customer definitely feels more confident when sending funds to a broker that is inspected and regulated by an authorized government body, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission or the UK Financial Conduct Authority, than to an exchange located somewhere offshore. Another safeguard when dealing with brokers is that the latter keep their clients' funds in bank accounts.

If a client chooses between an exchange and a broker, based on security considerations, he should be guided by his own goals. Choosing a reliable exchange with access to a large number of altcoins allows for high returns with relatively low security risks.

Storing funds that are not for trading in hardware wallets such as Trezor or Ledger is a common, as well as more secure option than accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges. The reason is obvious - an exchange account can hold hundreds of different types of cryptocurrencies, but all of these funds do not belong to the user, who does not and cannot have private cryptocurrency wallet keys. As long as the money is stored in the account, it belongs to the exchange. As the saying goes, "Not your keys, not your cryptocurrency!"

So, you can choose for yourself, buy Atom on the exchange or invest through CFD contract, in any case we wish you good luck.