2014: The Cosmos project was founded by Jae Kwon with the initial goal of solving the lack of interoperability between blockchains. Jae Kwon introduced the Tendermint consensus engine, an efficient, low-energy consensus mechanism that laid the foundation for the future development of the Cosmos network.

2015-2016: After two years of development, Cosmos released its first whitepaper, presenting the vision of an “Internet of Blockchains,” which aims to achieve blockchain interoperability through decentralized means. The whitepaper detailed Cosmos’s core components, including Tendermint, Cosmos SDK, and the IBC protocol.

2017: The Cosmos team successfully raised $17 million through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). This ICO attracted significant attention, selling out in just 28 minutes, demonstrating strong market interest in the project.

2018: The Cosmos mainnet officially launched along with the Cosmos Hub, the core hub of the network designed to connect multiple blockchains and provide cross-chain communication infrastructure. The launch of Cosmos Hub marked a major step toward blockchain interoperability.

March 2019: Cosmos released the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol, enabling easy exchange of tokens and data between different blockchains and significantly enhancing blockchain interoperability. The same year, Cosmos SDK was launched, offering a modular blockchain development toolkit that allows developers to build decentralized applications (dApps) and blockchain networks in a more flexible and cost-effective way.

2020: The Cosmos ecosystem continued to expand with the introduction of key projects such as Akash Network, Kava, and Band Protocol. These projects utilized the Cosmos SDK and IBC protocol to build their own blockchains, achieving cross-chain communication and interoperability through Cosmos Hub.

2021: Cosmos launched the Stargate upgrade, the largest upgrade since the mainnet launch. Stargate improved the performance of the IBC protocol, allowing faster and lower-cost data transfer between blockchains. Additionally, the Stargate upgrade optimized the Cosmos SDK, streamlining the developer experience.

2022: Cosmos introduced the Interchain Security (ICS) mechanism, which allows other blockchains to enhance their security by leveraging the validator set of Cosmos Hub. This mechanism strengthened security and interoperability within the Cosmos ecosystem and attracted more projects to join the network.

2023: Cosmos launched the Rollup Integration Plan, aiming to enhance network scalability and privacy by introducing zero-knowledge (ZK) and optimistic rollup technologies. This greatly enriched the technical offerings of the Cosmos ecosystem, providing developers with more options.

2024: Cosmos released Interchain Security 2.0 (ICS 2.0), introducing a partial validator model that allows validators to flexibly choose which chains to support, thereby improving cost-effectiveness and security of the network. Additionally, Cosmos made further enhancements to the IBC protocol, enabling more types of cross-chain communication and data transfer. By 2024, the Cosmos ecosystem includes over 200 blockchains, with a cumulative cross-chain value exceeding $29 billion, realizing its vision of an "Internet of Blockchains."