The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol
#IBC
is a blockchain interoperability solution that secures $30B+ in annual asset transfers for 100+ chains.
But it can be tough to understand how IBC works.
@ibcprotocol
aims to explain IBC for developers and researchers.
IBC 2023 Recap 💥
Highlights:
- 107 connected chains
- 124 Github contributors to main IBC repos
- 1,742 PRs merged
- Dozens of features, apps, tools
- DevX and usability improvements
- Expansion to new ecosystems
Thanks to the builders and community for advancing IBC. 🧵
1/
Reminder: Interoperability is a public good.
The core IBC protocol never extracts value. No in-protocol rent extraction or hidden fees.
The code is open-source, free to use, and rigorously peer reviewed by world-class developers.
All blockchains deserve to communicate.
8000+ NFTs have been IBC transferred in 2024, powered by ICS-721, the NFT transfer module, and its Cosmwasm implementation cw-ics721.
A technical walkthrough of the module and its development story, a collaborative effort between
@stargazezone
@irisnetwork
@arkprotocol
🧵
Dymension connects RollApps with IBC via a single IBC connection to the
@Dymension
Hub. Try it:
Plus, they are developing eIBC middleware to enable token transfer for optimistic rollups without waiting the dispute period.
👇
6/
March 29, 2021: Cosmos Hub enables IBC.
March 29, 2024: IBC has the largest network of interconnected chains in the world.
On April 2, a special episode of
#InterchainJam
with
@cosmos
@ibcprotocol
and iconic teams from across the interchain.
🎉 New Release: ibc-rs v0.52.0
Includes useful enhancements like better client handling and easier creation of CosmWasm contracts.
Features and enhancements 🧵
IBC is expansive.
Chains connect directly to one another.
There's no transaction routing through a hub chain.
Peer-to-peer connections open up endless possibilities for blockchain interoperability.
Check out IBC transaction flows from the perspective of
@osmosiszone
.
IBC lets blockchains communicate peer-to-peer.
There's no third-party intermediary with a set of admin keys. No multisig wallet. No liquidity pool.
Just 24/7 permissionless data-sharing.
Because all blockchains deserve to communicate.
The IBC protocol extracts no fees from users, and never will. Instead, relayers pay the gas fees for key stages of the IBC packet lifecycle, ensuring network liveness.
Is this model sustainable?
🧵 on the changing fee landscape, featuring work by
@Osmosiszone
@skipprotocol
.
Rollups require secure and flexible interoperability infrastructure. What's best for that?
IBC 🤝 Rollups.
A highlight thread on innovative rollup teams leveraging IBC.
1/
As IBC enters its third year, we look to the future.
IBC's vision is to become the TCP/IP for blockchains.
The protocol will evolve along two strategic pathways: expansion and usability.
Upcoming protocol and ecosystem development milestones 🧵
2024 is the year for IBC to expand to new ecosystems.
Ibc-go is used by 100+ chains, and ibc-rs and ibc-solidity are growing in adoption.
Multiple IBC implementations gives developers flexibility to build with IBC for versatile use cases. A quick walkthrough🧵
Smart contracts and modules are now IBC-enabled with the recent release of Callbacks Middleware v0.1.0.
Evmos
@EvmosOrg
is using the middleware to aggregate complex multichain actions into a single step, so their users never leave the Evmos front end. Technical case study 🧵
💥 New Release: ibc-go v8.1 with IBC Channel Upgradability
→ Upgrade existing IBC channels to use new features/apps like fee middleware
→ Use Interchain Accounts with unordered channels
→ Prune stale acknowledgements to reduce disk overhead
IBC Milestone 🚀
@tokifinance
@datachain_en
developed an IBC-enabled cross-chain infrastructure that has been adopted by the largest financial institutions in Japan.
The first step: Bank-backed stablecoins on ETH and BNB Chain testnets. 🧵
Traditional finance institutions demand best-in-class interoperability to bring RWAs on-chain.
IBC-based solutions are battle-tested and offer top-tier security.
A showcase of teams bringing IBC to traditional finance. 🤝
April 2, 2021: The first IBC transfer takes place between
@cosmoshub
and
@irisnet
.
April 2, 2024: 113 chains are IBC-enabled. They perform complex cross-chain interactions using dozens of features & apps.
Milestone highlights from the last 3 years of IBC. 🧵
Redefine what's possible cross-chain, enabled by adaptable workflows with the IBC Callbacks Middleware.
🧲 Smart contracts and modules can receive callbacks from IBC apps
💡 Endless possibilities for "Send X, do Y programmatically"
⚡ 3+ step user flows → 1 transaction
$2.7Bn USD has been lost in bridge hacks. 😱
☝️
@BanklessHQ
calculation as of August 2023.
Is IBC exposed to hacking risk? While it's never wise to say anything is bullet-proof, IBC's design does not have the points of failure that hackers often target in bridges. A 🧵
💥 New Release: 08-Wasm Client Module
Use a Wasm VM to host light clients as bytecode:
→ Write light clients in languages that compile to Wasm (Rust, C/C++, JS, Go, etc.)
→ Streamlined addition of new light clients
→ Easily instantiate clients for non-
@CometBFT
consensus
What’s next for IBC?
IBC's vision is to be the TCP/IP for blockchains.
To get there, IBC will develop along two strategic pathways: expansion and usability.
Expansion: connecting to more ecosystems.
Usability: better DevX and feature-rich cross-chain workflows.
🧵on 2024.
Rollups can connect to the IBC network of 113 chains.🔥
Explore the future of IBC's expansion to rollups with IBC Product Lead
@susevans
,
@dymension
's
@0xOmri
and
@rollkitdev
's
@0xnavage
on X Spaces.
📅 March 25, 12 PM UTC
🔔 Set reminder:
💥 Two big tech updates for IBC this week.
Did you know? IBC has a global community of development teams working on the protocol, implementations, middleware, apps, testing frameworks, and more.
This week, 2 teams released major updates 🧵
Light clients are the superpower enabling IBC’s rich cross-chain interactions.
Plus, they provide robust security by enabling a blockchain to verify transactions on another chain.
More on IBC light clients 🧵
1/
Introducing the ibc-apps repo maintained by
@strangelovelabs
🤝
Ibc-apps is a hub for high-quality IBC applications built by diverse teams who power interchain IBC.
It offers a one-stop shop for discovering non-core IBC modules and middleware.
2 years ago, the launch of Interchain Accounts enabled blockchains to manage accounts cross-chain for the first time.
Since then, 60+ chains have enabled ICA account host or controller functionality.
🧵 on use cases from
@stride_zone
@NolusProtocol
and
@TimewaveLabs
.
In 2024, IBC will expand to new ecosystems.
One of the targets is the OP Stack, a framework built by
@optimism
, Ethereum's second-largest rollup.
But how do you port a well-defined interoperability protocol to the OP Stack framework?
A preview into architecture 🧵
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🚀 New Release for Interchaintest: v8.1.0
Interchaintest now supports Ethereum and Polkadot.
Teams can now reliably test their IBC implementations for these ecosystems, facilitating IBC expansion 🔥
Additional functionality improves DevEx for Cosmos SDK users, too.
🧵
2.4M 💥
The number of IBC packets transferred by relayers between the top 28 IBC-enabled chains, January 2024.
IBC relayers ensure the network's liveness.
Get to know what relayers do and how to get started relaying in this mega thread🧵
"We want interoperability to be straightforward, accessible, and extensible, without value capture by the protocol, and not controlled by one entity or person who benefits from interoperability as-a-service." - IBC Product Lead, Susannah Evans, on Ethereum scaling and
#rollups
💥 New Release: ibc-rs v0.50
--> Added ICS-721 for cross-chain NFT transfers
--> Added ICS-08 wasm client: use a wasmVM to host light clients as bytecode; deploy contracts that connect to compatible ibc-go chains
--> Improved usability for ibc-primitives and ibc-testkit crates
Connect to a network of 110+ chains in any language that compiles to Wasm with the Wasm Client module.
⚡ Launch clients for new consensus models
🔌 Add more clients without a chain upgrade
♻️ Streamline development and use your preferred programming language, like Rust.
The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) and Chainlink's CCIP are both general-purpose message-passing interoperability protocols.
On the blog, IBC Protocol analyst
@adi_r_r
provides an in-depth technical perspective on the differences between the two protocols.
IBC’s reference implementation, IBC-Go has never had an exploit.
The majority of IBC-enabled chains use this implementation.
This is because IBC's light client-based interoperability lets chains verify transactions peer-to-peer for a more secure system.
Announcing the IBC Protocol Contributor Showcase winner for Q1 2024:
@0xbonlulu
.
Ben Luelo is a Founding Engineer at
@union_build
working on their relayer implementation.
He opened a comprehensive Github issue to generalize the ICS-02 Client module.
Choose. Create. Connect.
A guide to IBC's modular, composable feature set and how it lets you and your team build what you want, how you want it.
A 🧵
1/
Introducing the IBC Contributor Showcase 💥
Celebrating the builders who support the development of the IBC Protocol.
Each quarter, we will highlight a selected contributor and share their work with the community. Want to nominate yourself or someone else for Q1 2024? 🧵
💥 New release: interchaintest and local-interchain v8.3.0
This release is jam-packed with features and enhancements for an improved IBC testing experience.
Walkthrough of updates by the team at
@strangelovelabs
🧵
Ibc-solidity now supports the IBC localhost client.
IBC users can interact with multiple smart contracts/modules on the same EVM chain using one interface.
This makes it easier to test IBC apps on EVM.
Say hello to multiple Cosmwasm contract calls to an EVM-based chain. 🔥
🚀 New Release for Hermes Relayer: v1.8.0
Hermes is now compatible with chains with EIP-1559 dynamic fee markets 🔥
Plus, compatibility with ibc-go v8.0.0, and new features and settings expand Hermes functionality across the interchain.
Feature Roundup 🧵
@EvmosOrg
Execute callbacks during the IBC packet lifecycle in any execution environment, including Wasm and EVM.
Compatible with ibc-go v7.3.0 and above.
Learn how
@EvmosOrg
plans to use Callbacks Middleware on the blog.
The only time of year when an IBC developer trusts a third party intermediary is when the delivery guy brings those last minute holiday gift orders. 🎁
Happy holidays from IBC.
Join the teams from
@cosmossdk
,
@informalinc
, IBC at
@interchain_io
, and
@polymer_labs
as they dive into how Polymer's new architecture will use IBC to standardize interoperability for Ethereum and rollups.
📅 Jan. 11, 12PM EST
✅ Set reminder:
Join us Thurs, Jan 11 @ 12pm EST for the 1st 'Informal Spaces' of 2024!
We'll be discussing
@Polymer_Labs
new architecture & what it means for the
@cosmos_sdk
&
@IBCProtocol
. The best & brightest from Cosmos will be there (which means you will be too 😉)
Immutability: the principle that a record on a ledger cannot be removed or manipulated after consensus is reached.
This quality is a key value proposition for blockchains.
But how do we reconcile immutability in contracts and protocols with the pace of technological change?
Today's Blockchains are like early Macs and PCs: powerful machines unable to share files or execute cross-system programs natively.
IBC fixes this.
How? A secure and efficient framework for communication with two abstraction layers: transport and application. 🧵
Hey, Interchain developers 👋 The new ibc-godocumentation site is live now. 🔥
Explore the revised docs to learn about IBC's technical architecture, implementations and more. 🛠️
A year end report from
@blockworksres
highlights IBC and interchain developer team advancements. The report states:
"The need for a trust-minimized bridging standard is sorely needed and no solution is better positioned today than Cosmos’ IBC."
#IBC
Scalability, security, decentralization.
Those were some of the key forces driving crypto infra in 2023.
Part one of our year-end review covers L1/L2s, infrastructure, and more.
Check out the full report, made free thanks to
@MarinadeFinance
116 chains use IBC for $2Bn+ in asset transfers every 30 days.
Chains verify transactions directly, through self-hosted light clients.
This security model is battle-tested in production for over 3 years.
Appreciation to
@cointelegraph
for this feature.
New release: ibc-rs v0.51.0💥
--> Decoupled ICS-02, and ICS-24 contexts for easier 08-Wasm client integration.
--> Use custom signature verifier with Tendermint light clients. Now, Near/ Solana users can use host-specific signature verifiers to reduce gas costs.
Release notes📝
IBC is the jewel in the crown of the interchain ecosystem.
Chains that speak IBC can share any data that is encoded in bytes, enabling the industry’s most feature-rich cross-chain interactions.
Code Walkthrough 🧑💻
Creating an IBC light client generates a local identifier, and the clientID, unrelated to the chainID.
This is a key component of IBC’s security model: no 2 light clients have the same clientID, making it impossible to spoof an IBC connection that way.
The IBC protocol continuously adapts to address the expanding needs of the community of end users who build with IBC.
This channel will share educational info and IBC development updates for developers and technical teams.
Read more on our blog:
IBC is featured in the latest report by
@BinanceResearch
.
The report discusses the rapid and sustained growth of the IBC network in chains and transfer volume, plus the protocol's architecture and relationship with the Interchain Stack. ⬇️
Cosmos has grown into a vast ecosystem comprising a myriad of L1 blockchains tailored to different use cases and objectives.
Our latest
#Binance
report explores the intriguing ecosystem of Cosmos, examining its technology, and much more.
Have a read ⬇️
Prefer to build in Rust? Ibc-rs by
@informalinc
has you covered.
This robust implementation of IBC was designed to be independent of the underlying consensus.
It aims to expand the realm of IBC-enabled chain architectures, making it easier to take IBC to new ecosystems.
New Releases: ibc-rs Standalone ICS-02 Client Integration and Hermes Relayer Release v1.8.1 and v1.8.2💥
These releases simplify light client development and enhance relayer features and diagnostics.
Together, these releases offer useful enhancements. Feature roundup 🧵
--> Ecosystem Expansion.
Teams in the interchain ecosystem are building IBC integrations and light client implementations for many ecosystems.
IBC is coming to
@avax
with the work of
@cosmosAVAX
, and to
@nearprotocol
via
@oct_network
.
@penumbrazone
is building private IBC.
The team at
@polymer_labs
are bringing IBC as a feature to all of Ethereum.
This Ethereum L2 will use a modification of the OP Stack framework that also uses the
@cosmos_sdk
and ibc-go.
Ethereum itself will be verifying IBC execution on behalf of its rollups. 🤯
3/
Ethereum and its rollups deserve the best multi-chain infrastructure. That’s why it’s our mission to standardize interoperability with Polymer and
@IBCProtocol
.
We’re excited to present our new architecture as an ETH L2 bringing IBC to Ethereum.
1/
ICYMI: 54 new chains enabled IBC between 2022 - 2023.
A short 🧵 on essential technical considerations that will inform your development process with IBC.
The IBC rollups space with
@dymension
@rollkitdev
starts at 12 PM UTC.
Join us to explore the future of IBC-enabled rollups, shared sequencers, fraud proofs, and L2 ecosystems.
IBC Channel Upgradability empowers chains and interchain builders.
It's now possible to add middleware like ICS-29 relayer fee incentivization to well-established IBC channels. 🔥
An actionable tutorial on wiring up ICS-29 by IBC Product Engineer
@srdtrk
in the next post 👇
—> Use case
#3
: Osmosis swap & bridge through Metamask.
Example: Alice invokes an Ethereum Outpost via Metamask with the intent to onboard to Evmos with ETH. The outpost bridges ETH to Evmos, swaps it on
@OsmosisZone
& EVMOS tokens are staked on Evmos, all in 1 transaction.
These four teams
@tokifinance
@datachain_en
@millicentlabs
@provenancefdn
are at the forefront of bringing IBC to traditional finance.
We look forward to further developments as they leverage IBC's potential to reduce liquidity fragmentation and enhance interoperability.
Datachain and TOKI build the IBC-enabled infrastructure for
@progmat_en
, an issuance & management platform for RWAs and stablecoins.
Progmat stakeholders are Japan's largest financial institutions and enterprises, like MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho, and JPX.
The top external contributors to ibc-go through to the end of November were
@gadikian
,
@fekunze
,
@_cat_shark
,
@expertdicer
, and Vuong177.
Thank you to these individuals and to all IBC contributors for their invaluable efforts that drive the progress of IBC.
9/
Evmos is a blockchain built with the
@cosmossdk
that offers an EVM stack on Cosmos. Its Ethereum-based applications and assets are enhanced by IBC interoperability.
How does Evmos leverage Callbacks Middleware? 🧪
—> Use case
#1
: In 1 transaction, use the
@stride_zone
Outpost on Evmos to liquid stake tokens, then provide liquidity on a DEX.
Example: Alice calls a contract to liquid stake EVMOS tokens & get stEVMOS; then, the contract automatically provides the stEVMOS/EVMOS liquidity.
Japan's largest financial institutions, including MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho & JPX, are behind
@progmat_en
, an issuance & management platform for bank-backed RWAs.
@tokifinance
@datachain_en
build its on-chain infrastructure, including IBC-based interoperability.
These components bring a bright future of predictable and sustainable fees to the interchain 🌞
• ICS-29, incentivising delivery of IBC packets
• Block-SDK, customisation of blocks & transaction fees
• EIP-1559, demand-based fees
• Fee abstraction, pay gas in any token
The callbacks middleware unlocks powerful use cases for developers building appchains & interchain products, simplifying complex cross-chain interactions into one-click actions.
For a detailed case study, including Solidity interfaces, see the blog.
The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol developer community call recordings are now on YouTube 📹
Watch to get information about ibc-go and ibc-rs releases, middleware, IBC applications, IBC relayers, other IBC implementations, and more.
Ibc-solidity by
@datachain_en
brings IBC to the EVM.
It enables IBC token transfers, the full packet lifecycle, IBC connections, and other core IBC features.
The module offers efficient gas usage for
@ethereum
, too.
--> Ecosystem expansion.
After 2 years of seamless interoperability between Cosmos SDK chains, IBC branched out to new ecosystems.
In April 2023,
@composablefin
launched the first IBC implementation outside Cosmos. It connects Polkadot and Kusama.
1/❗🔊We just launched the first Polkadot<>Kusama connection via
@CosmosIBC
, setting a new standard for relay chain interoperability in DotSama! Check out Centauri, now live at
The Interchain Test testing framework by
@strangelovelabs
underpins e2e testing for ibc-go.
Interchain Test allows developers to quickly spin up local testnets, providing a dev environment to test IBC, infrastructure, smart contracts, and more.