Crypto is an attention race, as projects compete to bring in new developers and attract users. Hyperweb of Cosmos is betting on JavaScript to be the key for mainstream adoption. The company released its White Paper Wednesday.
Hyperweb was officially introduced by Ethan Buchman at Cosmoverse Dubai. It is a JavaScript virtual engine (HVM), which enables smart contracts to be executed seamlessly across chains.
Agoric, a chain of JavaScript developers, was the first to introduce this idea. “orchestrating” Actions across chains
Agoric, a Cosmos OG project, developed “hardened JavaScript” MetaMask Snaps is one example of a product that has been produced.
Hyperweb is a TypeScript only ecosystem, as opposed to Agoric. Dan Lynch, the co-founder at Hyperweb describes this difference using an analogy of modern and medieval spoken language.
“Agoric is kind of like old English — like the Shakespearean ‘where art thou’ — so it’s definitely something that we can decipher, but it’s not the way that we speak [today],” Lynch tells Blockworks. “There’s too much nomenclature in Agoric…if you’re a programmer, you have to juggle all these things just to try to do what you’re doing,” “He said”
Web3 developers’ experience is fragmented
Lynch describes Web3 development today as unnecessary complex and fragmented. Although he has 15 years of experience as chief technology officer, and a deep understanding of technical issues, jumping to build on Cosmos 2022 proved a nightmare.
“It was one of the hardest things I ever tried to do,” Lynch explained. This experience convinced him that the core issue in blockchain adoption isn’t just infrastructure — it’s the developer experience.
Web3 developers are in short supply. Web3 developers are being recruited from JavaScript and Python, which have a much bigger community.
Hyperweb’s HVM is an execution environment native to JavaScript that allows developers write smart contracts using TypeScript. This avoids the steep learning curve associated with building in Solidity or Rust.
The use of pure TypeScript — and minimal framework overhead — puts an emphasis on intuitive design. The team’s system was tested with a group UC Berkeley student, who were given a boilerplate sample contract and no documentation.
“Within a week, they had all 10 contracts written… they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, that was so fun and simple!'” Lynch said.
HVM is also its own sovereign blockchain. It will be marketed as Interchain JavaScript hub, and it’ll provide interpreters to tailor the same JavaScript codes for different blockchain runtimes. (EVM, CosmWasm VM, Solana, etc.). Lynch says that this makes it possible to distribute applications between chains without requiring major rewrites.
The project’s team previously was supported by a grant from the Interchain Foundation, but is on its own following the ICF’s acquisition of Skip to form Interchain Inc. Hyperweb’s forerunner, Cosmology — a tech suite enabling developers to build Web3 applications in the Cosmos ecosystem — announced the closure of a $5 million seed funding round last March — its only VC funding to date.
Tokenomics, incentives and tokens
Unlike most proof-of-stake Cosmos chains, Hyperweb is exploring a proof-of-authority (PoA) model, like stablecoin distributor Noble. The smaller number of validators is used to lower stake inflation and reduce pressure on the market.
“Cosmos chain tokenomics are broken,” Lynch posited that the dominant security model is staking inflation. “is unsustainable.”
Hyperchain fees will be in Noble USDC. Native tokens will act as revenue-sharing mechanisms to avoid reliance upon inflationary rewards.
Hyperweb’s long-term plans include integrating Ethereum, Solana, and non-Cosmos chain, which will enable a truly universal execution of smart contracts. That’s still some time away. Details about the Hyperweb Token are still being kept under wraps.
Hyperweb has already created a local network that allows JavaScript-based contracts to be tested by developers. A public testnet is coming soon, with opportunities for builders to be rewarded for their contributions — potentially in a way similar to Tea Protocol’s retrospective incentives for GitHub activity.
The vision for Hyperweb is ambitious — a unified, developer-friendly blockchain ecosystem that eliminates the siloes between old and new.
Lynch: “Let’s end the war between Web2 and Web3. It’s all the web.”
Hyperweb could break the developers’ blockade with the help of its developer tools and Google, Binance and Supabase.
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