Marko Baricevic, an experienced figure in the Cosmos ecosystem, has been deeply involved for nearly four years, joining shortly after the Cosmos Hub launched. His journey began in developer relations for the Cosmos SDK, led him to work on Tendermint, and now sees him leading the Cosmos SDK towards a new vision, beyond the original one set by Jay Kwon. Baricevic explains that Jay Kwon, who pioneered Proof-of-Stake, envisioned an "easier world" compared to earlier Proof-of-Work chains. This vision recognized the problem of isolated chains and sought to create a communication layer – eventually IBC – to enable economic and information exchange between "sovereign communities," which are chains in themselves. Baricevic notes that "a lot of that original vision is kind of like what is today's blockchain world," demonstrating the prescience of those early ideas from 2014-2016. He connects this to the concept of modularity, though he cautions that "the word modular has been like, it's a bit abused right now." He prefers the term "compartmentalization," where distinct components handle specific tasks, fostering experimentation and allowing software to serve as a library for building state machines. While early Cosmos SDK and Tendermint aimed for modularity, some of it was sacrificed for faster launch; his current work aims to restore that original design principle. Baricevic also offers a nuanced perspective on the debate between monolithic and modular architectures. He sees a parallel between the current "rollup world" and early Cosmos's "zone" terminology, where a single adjective attempts to encompass diverse entities. For him, a "sovereign roll-up is technically a blockchain that just posts some data to that availability layer." Despite the rise of modularity, he believes there's still a "huge valid case" for monolithic chains like Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana because "not everyone wants to manage their own infra." He illustrates the complexity spectrum: deploying a smart contract is "level one" difficulty, a full blockchain is "level ten," and rollups occupy the intermediate tiers. He suggests that for most applications, a smart contract is sufficient, and the notion that "everyone needs to have their own roll up type thing is kind of like the same thing of like the app chain," making sense only for specific use cases. His path into Cosmos was driven by a strong personal desire. After studying business and moving to Berlin, he taught himself programming to secure a job without needing German. He worked for an enterprise blockchain consultancy, building proofs-of-concept with technologies like JP Morgan's Quorum. It was watching Jay Kwon and Ethan Buchman demo Tendermint that sparked his ambition: "for some reason I was like, I want to work with these guys." He immersed himself in Cosmos, contributing to open source, running nodes, and relentlessly pursued a role at AIB, eventually securing it after four months and multiple interviews. "I was like hell bent on just working for Cosmos," he recalls. As the SDK lead, Baricevic balances both product and project management. His typical day involves reviewing code, ensuring engineers have clear tasks, and managing relationships with entities like the Interchain Foundation. On the product side, he engages with teams to understand their needs, often guiding them to solutions within the SDK that address multiple issues. His broad approach involves continuously learning from other blockchain ecosystems like Optimism, Arbitrum, Substrate, Solana, and Near. His goal for the SDK is proactive: "how do we make the SDK like meet that point in the future instead of like us always like following behind." He proudly states, "I'm not biased on the tech... I'm just like a, like a tech Maxi. Like I love like reading different designs and architectures and like learning from that." Baricevic praises the Cosmos validator community as the "strongest" in terms of engagement, noting that validators "really embody this idea that they are like part of the ecosystem. They have a say in the direction of a chain." He sees the cumbersome nature of Cosmos upgrades as a "path of engagement" that prevents validators from simply running software and forgetting it. He recounts a conversation where someone in the ETH ecosystem remarked, "Cosmos did it right" regarding governance. He attributes this engagement to Cosmos's Proof-of-Stake economic design, which encourages individual validators to gain more stake rather than simply running more nodes, making it feasible for "a guy in his garage" to participate. On the debate of whether validators should vote, he acknowledges it "really depends on the chain." While he believes the opinion that validators shouldn't vote is "totally valid" for many proposals, the reality is that many delegators "delegate and forget," necessitating alternative incentivization mechanisms for voting. Regarding organizational structures, he finds the choice between a multi-sig and a large decentralized DAO depends on what they are voting on, particularly highlighting the difficulty of funding proposals in large DAOs where the sheer "number" often overshadows the underlying work. For him, decentralization is "definitely a spectrum" whose necessity varies with the application. Discussing the business of validation through Binary Builders, Baricevic admits, "it's hard to get started," but once infrastructure is set up, "the infrastructure part is the difficult part. It's the more like how to build a brand around the validator to get delegations is the hard part." Binary Builders, which maintains the Cosmos SDK and leads the Interchain Builders Program, uses validator proceeds to offset ICF costs, hire engineers, and incentivize team members. Their model adheres to "the value goes to the value creator," preferring direct bonus payouts over traditional equity to foster a "hungrier" and more entrepreneurial team. This aligns with his personal motivation: "I'm having fun. For me, as long as I'm having fun, I believe everything will go well." He is deeply motivated by the Cosmos ecosystem, seeing projects utilize their work, and by the astonishing "rate of innovation... someone writes a paper and then like six months later it's already like there's like a new paper like making it even better." Baricevic's vision for the future of the Interchain goes beyond the current layer. He anticipates an "emerging roll up world" that bridges the gap between launching a full chain and deploying a smart contract, leading to many more "state machines" where the distinction between contracts, rollups, and blockchains becomes blurred. This future, where the limitation shifts from launching a chain to launching a rollup or contract, will enable more players to use transparent ledgers without managing extensive infrastructure. To facilitate this, the Cosmos SDK is undergoing significant refactoring for "full composability, fully modular" design. Soon, the SDK will be usable independently of Comet (Tendermint), allowing integration with various sequencers. Research is also delving into "commitment structures" in the storage layer, challenging the assumption that "blockchain stopped at Merkle trees, but there's so much more." Furthermore, the goal is to enable module development in any language and seamlessly integrate virtual machines, treating the Cosmos SDK as a middleware "kernel" for a broader "user space" of different languages and VMs. He stresses that the SDK is far from a mere maintenance project; "we're doing so much more." Technologically, Baricevic is captivated by advancements in the ZK world, citing work from Polymer (zk-tree, zk-mint) and Scroll (zk-VM, EVM variation). He was also impressed by Arbitrum's feat of compiling Geth into WASM. Beyond crypto, he follows breakthroughs in the battery industry and AI, appreciating the rapid pace of innovation where a paper can go into production within three months. His motivations are deeply personal. He credits Zucky with the insight, "if you don't feel like you're on the brink of failure, or if you're not pushing yourself to the brink of failure, you're not moving forward." He admires the sustained hunger and hustle of people like Sunny and Dave from Osmosis and Kepler. Most profoundly, his grandmother's teaching—"why should I treat you any different than like another person"—shapes his philosophy of treating everyone, even prominent figures like Vitalik, as normal human beings.