Sovereign EVM Day, an event hosted by Cosmos and Interop Ventures on June 30, brought together over 18 ecosystem teams in Cannes for a full day of invigorating presentations, technical deep dives, and cross-ecosystem panels. At the summit, industry leader Ripple (XRPL chain) announced the release of their EVM-compatible sidechains built on the Cosmos Stack, and now powering the native DeFi layer of XRP; TAC deep-dived on their upcoming Telegram and TON EVM chain, bringing Telegram’s one billion users to EVM; Stride detailed their upcoming IBC Eureka-powered DEX, bringing cross-chain DeFi. Other participants include Starknet, Polygon, Babylon, Pantera, and Anoma/Namada.
To kick off the summit, Barry Plunkett and Maghnus Mareneck, Co-CEOs of Interchain Labs, recounted the growth roadmap of the Cosmos ecosystem, highlighting the debut of Cosmos EVM – the only fully integrated EVM Layer 1 stack on the market – used by Ripple, TAC, Babylon, and other attending protocols. Cosmos EVM offers developers unmatched flexibility and control down to the core chain logic. It opens the door for both Layer 1 blockchains and EVM dApps to launch sovereign and interoperable infrastructure tailored to their needs, all starting within Cosmos. This stack, combined with the recent IBC upgrade that connects Ethereum and soon L2s and Solana to Cosmos, sets the stage for Cosmos to become the epicenter of financial assets, RWAs, institutions, and multichain apps, as Cosmos sets the rails to connect everything.
In a keynote address, Luke Judges, Director of Ripple, and Ferran Torres, CEO and Founder of Peersyst, announced the mainnet launch of the XPL EVM sidechain. Built on the Cosmos SDK, the sidechain marks a major milestone for Ripple, as it brings native DeFi capabilities to the $127B+ XRP ecosystem for the first time, opening the door to a wave of consumer-facing applications and financial services on XRPL. XRP users, counted above six million, will now be able to access applications in XRP, EVM, and Cosmos over the native IBC interoperability protocol.
Barry Plunkett, Co-CEO of Interchain Labs, said: “From Telegram to XRP, millions of people will soon access EVM and the multichain world with Cosmos. Sovereign EVM Day solidified the Internet of Blockchains as a reality today. We are coming together and connecting ecosystems over the Inter-blockchain Communication protocol to bring new opportunities for building at the intersection of all chains. There, new opportunities exist to connect everything – programming cross-chain interactions to create new kinds of DeFi, and applications previously impossible; and bringing all productive assets to a common interoperable space, where users can easily access them. We’re proud to support projects building the next generation of blockchains.”
The Stride Labs team highlighted the evolution of the IBC Flywheel, powered by the upcoming Stride DEX, a milestone for Cosmos-native DeFi. Backed by the Interchain Foundation, the DEX will enable multichain swaps and provide a deep liquidity layer powering IBC Eureka. Stride is an example of the connect-everything vision, seeking to abstract the multichain experience, allowing for high-performance programmable DeFi in a cross-chain world. With one-click routing through the Hub to interact with native assets not only in the hundreds of chains connected by IBC and Ethereum, but Solana, Bitcoin, and others soon as well.
Marco Monaco, Co-founder of TAC, presented the soon-to-be-released TAC blockchain. An EVM app layer that is an extension of the TON and Telegram ecosystem. Supported natively by this ecosystem, TAC brings DeFi applications over EVM to Telegram’s over 1 billion users, allowing them to access apps without leaving Telegram or their wallets. This unlocks an ecosystem of apps previously impossible for TON, and connects it to hundreds of chains and Ethereum over IBC.
Hosted at the Hotel Belle Plage on June 30 in Cannes, Sovereign EVM is the first event of the Sovereign Series, a curated set of global gatherings dedicated to exploring the true potential of Web3 at the intersection of all chains.
