Cosmos developers outline plans to advance the IBC protocol

The Cosmos team unveiled the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol roadmap for 2024, aimed at seamless network interoperability.

1/ Introducing the #IBC 2024 Roadmap ?

Let’s dive into the future of the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol!

A future where diverse blockchain ecosystems are united through seamless interoperability, where secure, reliable, and trust-minimized communication is the norm ? pic.twitter.com/KAzQniuPac

— Cosmos — Internet of Blockchains ⚛️ (@cosmos) September 18, 2023

The emphasis is on scalability and usability. Under the forthcoming plans, deployment times for IBC will be shortened, operating costs reduced, and a wider range of blockchains will gain the ability to connect to the protocol.

“Regarding usability, the teams plan to work on ensuring atomicity of several packages and improving middleware by enhancing the transmission of arbitrary data alongside tokens. These steps will make IBC more comfortable and multifunctional for developers,” Cosmos emphasised.

In addition, Inter-Blockchain Communication tooling will be separated from the Cosmos SDK. A separate platform — Interchain Stack — will be created for them.

IBC is a protocol that enables comprehensive cross-chain interoperability not only for tokens but also for other data. Blockchains built on it can remotely manage accounts, and query information from other ecosystems.

According to Cosmos, over the past year, 52 million transactions worth $29 billion have gone through IBC across more than 100 networks.

In June, the Polkadot integrated with Cosmos via Inter-Blockchain Communication. The networks on the platform met with more than 50 blockchains that support IBC.

In September, the Cosmos platform developers added to the central blockchain of the Cosmos Hub the liquid staking module during the upgrade to version v12.