Glossary
Cosmos
An ecosystem of sovereign blockchains built with the Cosmos SDK, connected via IBC, each running its own validator set and Tendermint-style BFT consensus.
Cosmos is less a single chain than a stack: the Cosmos SDK for building application-specific chains, Tendermint (now CometBFT) for fast-finality BFT consensus, and IBC for trust-minimized inter-chain messaging.
Each chain is sovereign — own validators, own governance, own native token — and connects to the others via IBC channels. Major chains running on the stack include the Cosmos Hub, Osmosis, Celestia, dYdX v4, and Injective.