[sig-economics] High-level Discussion: Evaluating a Potential New Chain for the Akash Network

[brewsterdrinkwater]

Hi all,

This GitHub discussion evolved from ongoing Akash community dialog around Akash Network’s exploration of migrating from Cosmos to a new host chain. To manage ideas coming in from all corners of the Akash community, this discussion is designed to allow anyone and everyone to share ideas, opinions, and potential paths forward.

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1. Context:

The official Akash account shared a tweet publicly on October 11th, 2025:

https://x.com/akashnet/status/1976869706494886011

The intention of finding a new home for the Akash Network includes strong security, a high-quality community, deep liquidity, and exciting growth.

The evaluation will be public and transparent, including a forthcoming AEP (Akash Enhancement Proposal) for interested potential blockchain partners.

In a recent post on X, Greg (founder of Akash / Overclock Labs) stated that Akash will deprecate its own L1 and begin evaluating “other chains that can ensure the security of Akash,” both within and beyond Cosmos, while remaining IBC-compatible so users can keep using the same stack (Keplr, Osmosis, etc.)

https://x.com/gregosuri/status/1977370418794086528

This discussion will be the source of truth for Phase 1 of exploring a new home for the Akash Network.

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2. High-Level Motivation :

(from recent SIG Economics discussion)

From Cheng’s comments on the SIG Economics call (2025-10-22), the main drivers can be summarized as:

Better use of emissions

• Today, a large share of emissions go to securing Akash’s own chain (validators + staking rewards).
• The vision going forward is to direct more value toward actual network usage (deployments, providers, builders), rather than chain security.

Focus on the application, not running an L1

• Maintaining a full L1 (upgrades, validator software, infra, integrations) consumes significant engineering and operational bandwidth.
• Moving to a robust host chain could free the core team and community to focus on AoS, provider experience, and growing network spend.

Evolving staking and economics

• Staking is expected to evolve into something superior to pure consensus security.
• Potential alignment more directly with real workloads and provider activity (e.g., staking to providers or usage-linked incentives).

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3. What Is Not Decided:

• No destination chain has been chosen.
• The evaluation includes chains both inside and outside Cosmos.

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4. Key Considerations for the Akash Community:

To keep discussion productive, helpful contributions can focus on these areas:

Destination Criteria:

• What are your must-have criteria for a host chain?
• Security and uptime
• Community quality and values (open source, governance, decentralization)
• Liquidity and DeFi infrastructure
• Long-term viability and ecosystem “gravity”

Economic and Staking Design:

• How should emissions and rewards evolve if Akash no longer runs its own L1?
• What is the future role of:
  • Stakers
  • Providers
  • Builders
• Ideas for new staking or incentive models tied to real workloads.

Developer and User Experience:

• Which ecosystems are most attractive for builders, and why?
• How important is DevX (tooling, languages, docs) in chain selection?
• What would a good migration UX look like for:
  • Token migration
  • Staking/delegations
  • Provider onboarding
  • Tenants deploying workloads

Risk and trade-offs

• What concerns do you have about moving to a new host chain (downtime, governance capture, token complexity)?
• Are there any deal-breakers the community should explicitly define?

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5. How Your Considerations Impact the Process:

The intent of this GitHub discussion is to:

• Collect high-level requirements and concerns from the entire Akash community, including validators, providers, builders, and token holders.
• Help inform:
  • The public-facing AEP the core team will issue to potential host chains.
  • Future, more detailed proposals that will eventually go to on-chain governance.

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References

• Akash Network Official Tweet: https://x.com/akashnet/status/1976869706494886011
• Greg Osuri Follow-Up Tweet: https://x.com/gregosuri/status/1977370418794086528
• SIG-Economics Monthly Meeting (2025-10-22):
  https://github.com/akash-network/community/blob/main/sig-economics/meetings/032-2025-10-22.md

[rodri-r]

So in my opinon, if Akash is going to move to another blockchain, we should figure out a way to move to Ethereum.

Ethereum is widely considered the most decentralized smart contract platform. It is already being used by instituitions, governments and many devs. It's integration and acceptance will just keep growing over time.

"Decentralization is the key to a truly fair and transparent society." Vitalik Buterin

This alone answers the following points and all their subpoints in this chain migration evaluation discussion:

• Destination Criteria
• Economic and Staking Design
• Developer and User Experience

[cenwadike]

Ethereum can be too expensive for some users

[rodri-r]

Gas fees are now much much lower in Ethereum than they were before. There are also smart contracts that can batch transactions to lower fees, as well as other ways that we can use Ethereum, while reducing gas fees.

[cenwadike]

Lower now does not guarantee the affordability under high demand.

Transaction batching adds a layer of trust on 3rd party MEV infra...for batching.

If by smart contracts for batching you mean L2s, clarify.