English

The Interblockchain Communication Protocol: An Overview

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing 2020-06-30 v1

Abstract

The interblockchain communication protocol (IBC) is an end-to-end, connection-oriented, stateful protocol for reliable, ordered, and authenticated communication between modules on separate distributed ledgers. IBC is designed for interoperation between heterogenous ledgers arranged in an unknown, dynamic topology, operating with varied consensus algorithms and state machines. The protocol realises this by specifying the sufficient set of data structures, abstractions, and semantics of a communication protocol which once implemented by participating ledgers will allow them to safely communicate. IBC is payload-agnostic and provides a cross-ledger asynchronous communication primitive which can be used as a constituent building block by a wide variety of applications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.15918,
  title  = {The Interblockchain Communication Protocol: An Overview},
  author = {Christopher Goes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.15918},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

16 pages, 15 code listings in the appendix

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:41:40.142Z