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ibc-apps

IBC applications and middleware for Cosmos SDK blockchains

🌌 Why have an ibc-apps repo?

Early IBC work started in the ibc-go repo. As the repo grew, the need arose to parallelize the work among many teams.

The ibc-apps repo is meant to be an easily discoverable, navigable, central place for modules and middleware.

🌌🌌 Who's it for?

IBC-Apps is for:

• Core ibc-go contributors; it frees them from having to maintain IBC Apps,

• Publishers of ibc apps, so their apps can be easily found, and

• Everyone who uses IBC and wants to benefit from the full range of its capabilities.

🌌🌌🌌 What is it?

What is IBC?

The Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) is a protocol to handle the authentication and transport of data between two blockchains. IBC requires a minimal set of functions, specified in the Interchain Standards (ICS). These specifications do not limit the network topology or consensus algorithm, so IBC can be used with a wide range of blockchains or state machines. The IBC protocol provides a permissionless way for relaying data packets between blockchains, unlike most trusted bridging technologies. The security of IBC reduces to the security of the participating chains.

IBC solves a widespread problem: cross-chain communication. This problem exists on public blockchains when exchanges wish to perform swaps. The problem arises early in the case of application-specific blockchains, where every asset is likely to emerge from its own purpose-built chain. Cross-chain communication is also a challenge in the world of private blockchains, in cases where communication with a public chain or other private chains is desirable.

Cross-chain communication between application-specific blockchains in Cosmos creates the potential for high horizontal scalability with transaction finality. These design features provide convincing solutions to well-known problems that plague other platforms, such as transaction costs, network capacity, and transaction confirmation finality.

What is an IBC App?

IBC apps can be split into two categories - modules and middleware.

IBC Modules are self-contained applications that enable packets to be sent to and received from other IBC-enabled chains. IBC application developers do not need to concern themselves with the low-level details of clients, connections, and proof verification.

IBC Middleware are self-contained modules that sit between core IBC and an underlying IBC application. This allows developers to customize lower-level packet handling. Multiple middleware modules can be chained together.

🌌🌌🌌🌌 How to Use this repo

If you'd like to include software in this repo, please see contributing.

🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌 Bonus Content

Maintained Branches

List of Apps

Ecosystem Apps

Modules and middleware developed by other awesome teams in the ecosystem: