Interchain Foundation bought Skip on December 10, 2024, and renamed it Interchain Inc.1. The Interchain Foundation named Skip co-founder Maghnus Mareneck co-lead of the new unit in the same release. Cosmos co-founder Ethan Buchman stepped down from the foundation's council on December 10, 2024, too, the release said. Mareneck shared the role with fellow Skip co-founder Barry Plunkett. Their job was to lead product, protocol and strategy work, work the foundation had split across outside groups for years2.
The second executive hire at the Interchain Foundation on the record since 2024
Leadership moves CryptoLately has verified at the Interchain Foundation, by year
- 2024: 5
- 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024 | 5 |
| 2025 | 0 |
| 2026 | 3 |
39 executive hires on the record in 2024
Executive hires CryptoLately has verified, by year; 2026 through Oct. 2, 2026
- 2024: 39
- 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025, 2026
Moves: The Moves Ledger, CryptoLately's record of verified leadership moves, Oct. 3, 2016 to Oct. 2, 2026.
Read the chart as a table
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| 2019 | 11 |
| 2020 | 12 |
| 2021 | 27 |
| 2022 | 37 |
| 2023 | 20 |
| 2024 | 39 |
| 2025 | 59 |
| 2026 | 45 |
The move
Mareneck framed the job in sharp terms. In the foundation's release, he tied his new role to a fight for the original values of the crypto industry. “We face a crisis of both our personal freedoms and the values of our industry,” he said. “Ecosystems around us are pushing centralized, commercialized systems that lock people into fee-extracting and censorable systems, the very same as systems we're here to oppose. We decided to spearhead the Cosmos movement — the last true cryptosovereignty movement — to continue and accelerate the original vision of crypto.”1
Reporter Daniel Kuhn wrote on December 10, 2024, that the foundation had split Cosmos work across independent "stewards" for years2. The Skip deal moved that work under one roof, Kuhn reported. Kuhn quoted Buchman on the old setup. “Cosmos has long struggled with org fragmentation and a lack of core competencies at the foundation,” Buchman wrote in a post on X that Kuhn's report cited. Buchman added that Skip's co-founders “also see the critical importance of a hub blockchain at the heart of the ecosystem to coordinate, route, canonicalize, drive liquidity, support chain launches, and overall chain growth.”
Skip's record before the acquisition
Mareneck and Plunkett built Skip inside Cosmos over close to three years1. The pair shipped the Block SDK, Skip:Connect and mev-tendermint in 2023. Those tools made the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT better for app-chain builders, Interchain Foundation said. The Block reported that Skip Protocol launched in 2022 to connect app-chains, work its co-founders called "skipping" the complexity of blockchain bridging2. One Skip product, Skip:Go, moved 25 to 50 percent of IBC's monthly transactions on average, the foundation said.
What came next
The group Mareneck co-led took the name Cosmos Labs on September 4, 20254. On June 4, 2026, Cosmos Labs bought the Cosmos block explorer Mintscan and opened a Seoul unit called Cosmos Labs Korea, The Block reported3. Cosmos Labs said the deal would bring Mintscan together with Skip:Go, IBC Eureka and Cosmos Hub work under one roof. Co-CEO Barry Plunkett said it would also grow the company's reach in South Korea, where a large share of Cosmos builders work. Mareneck was still co-CEO on July 28, 20265.
Sources
- Interchain Foundation, "Interchain Foundation Acquires Blockchain Solutions Provider Skip to Reignite Cosmos: the interchain," CoinDesk (press release), December 10, 2024, https://www.coindesk.com/press-release/2024/12/10/interchain-foundation-acquires-blockchain-solutions-provider-skip-to-reignite-cosmos-the-interchain
- Daniel Kuhn, "In latest shakeup, Interchain Foundation acquires Skip to refocus Cosmos Hub at ecosystem's core," The Block, December 10, 2024, https://www.theblock.co/post/330189/in-latest-shakeup-interchain-foundation-acquires-skip-to-refocus-cosmos-hub-at-ecosystems-core
- Yogita Khatri, "Cosmos Labs acquires block explorer Mintscan, forms Korea subsidiary to expand ecosystem," The Block, June 4, 2026, https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiqAFBVV95cUxOWjc4M0tMVThjTUhtUnRQSTR5R1QxS2pSMmtNM182VHU3WXdFWHVvazNuNkVGTzdzeFhpRE1KV1M0b0NlOV8xdWQ2NXZRbFVPdUJQd1l4TVI2SDJsMzRBdDVtdk0xRVVfTy1PTUtreEMxMC1nRlhtZm1rRTR6MzhLMUVROHFndS0tMVQxa0EtUEFCVWJqcXlXa3FkdXdIMXc1YkFXVHB4amU?oc=5
- Cosmos Labs, "Interchain Labs is now Cosmos Labs," Cosmos Labs, September 4, 2025, https://cosmos.network/blog/interchain-labs-becomes-cosmos-labs
- "Barry Plunkett, Co-CEO and Co-Founder at Cosmos Labs – Interview Series," Securities.io, July 28, 2026, https://www.securities.io/barry-plunkett-co-ceo-and-co-founder-at-cosmos-labs-interview-series/