NilChain, the privacy-focused blockchain constructed by Nillion utilizing the Cosmos SDK, is scaling again its operations on Cosmos as a part of a broader ecosystem-wide transition to concentrate on interoperability.
In X's announcement on February 17, the workforce said that the community would stop operations on March 23, and urged holders of NIL tokens emigrate their belongings to Ethereum earlier than the closure.
NilChain was designed as a community for safe computation. Nonetheless, this chain doesn’t appear to have achieved widespread use inside the Cosmos ecosystem.
Nonetheless, leaving Cosmos doesn’t imply the top of Nillion itself, as the corporate plans to proceed working on Ethereum. Amid this information, nilChain’s native token NIL soared greater than 10% on the day to $0.06 and is at the moment buying and selling round $0.053, in response to knowledge from CoinGecko.
It stays unclear why the workforce determined to maneuver away from Cosmos. The Nillion workforce declined The Defiant's request for touch upon the transfer for this text.
NilChain will not be as extensively referred to as bigger Layer 1 or Layer 2 networks, however Nillion has raised a number of funding. In December 2022, the corporate closed a seed spherical of roughly $20 million led by Distributed International with participation from GSR Markets and HashKey.
In October 2024, the corporate raised one other $25 million in a spherical led by Hack VC with assist from Arbitrum Basis, Worldcoin, sei, HashKey Capital, and Animoca Manufacturers.
Escape from the Cosmos
The transfer comes as Cosmos itself reevaluates its route. In July 2025, Cosmos Hub canceled plans so as to add assist for native sensible contracts, citing excessive prices and weak developer demand. Groups that had been planning to deploy purposes on the hub had been inspired to construct on different Cosmos-based chains as an alternative.
This variation compelled many groups to reset, and on the similar time led to quite a lot of workforce departures. Since mid-2025, a number of initiatives have introduced termination or downsizing throughout the Cosmos ecosystem.
Stablecoin-focused challenge Noble introduced earlier this yr that it will activity Cosmos with launching its personal EVM-compatible L1, saying the workforce hoped to “meet customers and builders the place they already are.” Some chains have gone a special route, with chains like Pryzm and Quasar saying closures or main modifications.
Some have publicly stated they may depart Cosmos after years of combating liquidity, consumer distribution, and developer traction after Terra's collapse in 2022. Others, together with infrastructure suppliers, argue that the ecosystem nonetheless is smart for groups centered on interoperability fairly than shopper DeFi.
TVL, Cosmos Hub app income and costs. Supply: Defilama
The Cosmos Hub itself has additionally seen a decline in exercise. The entire quantity locked on the community is at an all-time low, down from about $2.65 million earlier this month to about $131,000, in response to knowledge from DefiLlama.
Community prices have additionally dropped considerably. By January, charges had hit an all-time low of about $218,000, and solely 4 of the 11 protocols deployed on Cosmos Hub had been worthwhile.
In keeping with CoinGecko, Cosmos Hub's native token, ATOM, has fallen about 4% up to now 24 hours, regardless of gaining greater than 18% over the previous week.
