Cosmos Labs is buying Mintscan, the ecosystem's main block explorer.

One Maintainer for Core Cosmos Infrastructure

@cosmoslabs_io is acquiring the Mintscan (@mintscanio) product suite and bringing its team on board as a new South Korean subsidiary called Cosmos Labs Korea. The move sees Cosmos Labs, the core development team of the Cosmos ecosystem, take control of the widely used block explorer while establishing a new coordination hub in Seoul, South Korea.

Mintscan serves as the official explorer for the majority of Cosmos-based networks and supports interchain block exploration for networks built with the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint engine. The acquisition brings it under the same roof as Skip:Go and IBC Eureka, two other pieces of critical Cosmos infrastructure already maintained by Cosmos Labs.

According to Barry Plunkett, Co-CEO of Cosmos Labs, transaction negotiations began in October 2025, initiated by the co-founder of South Korean crypto company Stamper, the legal entity behind Cosmostation. Neither party disclosed the transaction amount, financing method, or whether Cosmos Hub tokens were involved.

The consolidation addresses a longstanding problem in the ecosystem. Tools previously run by separate operators now sit on a single platform, with the goal of freeing up engineering capacity for the Cosmos Hub roadmap. Outgoing Interchain Foundation board member Ethan Buchman, a co-founder of Cosmos, has previously acknowledged the challenge, noting that the ecosystem had been "struggling with the organizational challenges and fragmentation."

Korea as the Strategic Anchor

The Korea angle is central to the deal. The country represents one of cosmos:native's strongest markets, and the new subsidiary is designed to anchor a broader push to position the Cosmos Hub as a settlement layer for institutional DeFi moving over IBC.

IBC Eureka simplifies cross-chain communication between Cosmos and Ethereum by reducing infrastructure overhead and enabling seamless token transfers, built on IBC v2, Skip:Go, and the Cosmos Hub. Skip:Go already powers over half of all IBC volume, making it one of the most strategically significant products now under the Cosmos Labs umbrella.

With the groundwork now in place, Cosmos Labs has said 2026 will focus on accelerating the stack, targeting improvements in performance, connectivity, and onboarding enterprise features. Pulling Mintscan into that structure signals that the team sees unified tooling as essential to that effort.

Sources
WEEX Crypto News: Cosmos Labs Acquires Mintscan
Blockworks: What Changes for Cosmos After Skip Acquisition
Cosmos Labs: The Cosmos Stack Roadmap for 2026