Glossary
IBC
Inter-Blockchain Communication: the standard protocol Cosmos chains use to send messages and assets between each other with light-client verification.
IBC lets sovereign chains communicate without trusting any third party between them. Each chain runs a light client of the other's consensus and verifies incoming messages cryptographically against the source chain's headers.
The model is much stronger than the validator-set bridges that dominate EVM-to-EVM transfers: IBC's security reduces to the honesty of each chain's own consensus, with no separate "bridge committee" to compromise. Adoption is moving beyond Cosmos via projects like Polymer and Composable.