IBC Protocol (Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol) is the inter-blockchain communication standard of Cosmos. It is a reliable, orderly, and verifiable communication method for delivering messages between blockchains.

IBC joined the Cosmos development plan very early. It was developed 4 years after the birth of Cosmos and was officially integrated into the Cosmos network in February 2021. The IBC protocol, together with Comsos SDK and Tendermint, is a core component of the Cosmos ecological infrastructure.

Similar to the Cosmos SDK, IBC also has a collection of modules with various specifications and properties. Therefore, as long as the basic requirements are met, it can implement the same cross-chain communication function in different ways in different scenarios. For blockchains, they only need to be compatible with basic IBC and can be freely connected together to interact without the need to set further special permissions.

At the same time, IBC is not limited to Tendermint-based blockchains. It can also be applied to other blockchains such as Ethereum, Polkadot, etc. It can be achieved by any consensus algorithm that supports verifiable finality. IBC makes no assumptions about the structure of the blockchain network it operates on, enabling the security and correctness of communications over a single point of connection between two modules on both chains.

What problem does IBC solve?

IBC solves the problem of [cross-chain communication] in the Cosmos ecosystem. As a complex ecosystem composed of multiple blockchains, information between different blockchains within Cosmos needs to be transferred to each other to achieve interoperability between chains. For example, a user may want to stake blockchain A's stablecoin in blockchain B's DEX to generate income. The IBC protocol is the necessary standard to realize this cross-chain requirement for assets.

IBC supports communication between two different blockchains without trusting any middleman. It not only solves the interoperability problem between Cosmos ecological chains, but also realizes the cross-blockchain transmission of arbitrary data in a trust-minimized, scalable and universal way. This data transfer includes cross-chain assets and cross-chain information, such as cross-chain transfer of tokens and NFT assets, as well as cross-chain account management, information query, etc.