## What Is Osmosis? Osmosis is an advanced AMM protocol built using the [Cosmos SDK](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/a-deep-dive-into-the-cosmos-network-and-the-cosmos-ecosystem) that will allow developers to design, build, and deploy their own customized AMMs. Heterogeneity and sovereignty are two core tenets of the Cosmos ecosystem, and Osmosis takes these two values and extends them into core characteristics of this AMM protocol. Rather than aim for a one-size-fits-all homogeneous approach for AMMs and its liquidity pools, Osmosis is designed such that the most efficient solution is reachable through the process of experimentation and rapid iteration by leveraging the wisdom of the crowd. It achieves this by offering deep customizability to AMM designers, and a governance mechanism by which each AMM pool’s stakeholders (i.e. liquidity providers) can govern and direct their pools. As a decentralized [P2P](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/article/what-is-peer-to-peer-p2p) protocol, the platform is used for trading tokens and creating [liquidity](https://coinmarketcap.com/alexandria/glossary/liquidity). The project conducted an ICO in October 2021. The token sale led by Paradigm Ventures helped the company to raise $21 million. Osmosis takes two of the core tenets of the Cosmos ecosystem (heterogeneity and sovereignty) and extends them into the core features of its AMM protocol. As such, the protocol utilizes self-governing liquidity pools that allow users to vote on pool parameters and protocols, and provide liquidity, and stake. ### Who Are the Founders of Osmosis? The DEX was launched by Osmosis Labs, founded by Josh Lee and Sunny Aggarwal. A graduate of Anderson University, Lee was one of the founding employees of Block in Press, a leading Korean blockchain media outlet. Between 2018 and 2019, he worked as the project manager at Lunamint where he curated the first native crypto wallet within the Telegram messenger. He has also functioned as a development analyst at Tendermint. As for Aggarwal, he previously worked as a research scientist at Tendermint and is a core developer of the Cosmos SDK and Gaia blockchain. He is also the co-founder of Sikka, a company that works on DeFi protocols and networks. ### When Was Osmosis Launched? Osmosis launched in June 2021. ### Where Is Osmosis Located? The company has its headquarters in Singapore. ### Osmosis Restricted Countries At the time of writing, it is unable to confirm if users in some regions are restricted from using the platform. ### What Coins Are Supported on Osmosis? The DEX platform currently supports swaps between 56 tokens in the Cosmos ecosystem. ### How Much Are Osmosis Fees? Although swap fees range from 0.1% for direct route swaps to 0.5% for multi-hop Osmo route, most swaps are charged at 0.2% per pool, with a few variations. ### Is it Possible To Use Leverage or Margin Trading on Osmosis? The DEX does not support margin trading.