The term blockchain interoperability:

Interoperability is defined as “the semantic dependence between distinct

ledgers to transfer or exchange data or value, with assurance of validity”.
A technical report from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) defines blockchain interoperability as “a
composition of distinguishable blockchain systems, each representing a
unique distributed data ledger, where atomic transaction execution may
span multiple heterogeneous blockchain systems, and where data
recorded in one blockchain are reachable, verifiable, and referable by
another possibly foreign transaction in a semantically compatible
manner”. according to Beckstrorm’s law it says that the value of a
network is the net value of each user’s transactions summed up for all
user. Blockchain is a network. The more user it has, the more valuable it
gets. But today blockchain networks are separated like islands where
each blockchain has its own strengths. Greater security, cheaper
transaction, faster throughput. But the users and developers cannot
leverage all those benefits together. Connecting blockchains together
will lead to mass adoption and elevate blockchain to another level. Over
the years there were many attemps to create interoperability by building
bridges and networks to connect these chains together.
Blockchain interoperabiliy approaches:
1. Public connectors
2. Blockchain of Blockchains
3. Hybrid connectors
Public connectors:
Public connectors are strategies across public blockchains supporting
cryptocurrencies, including sidechain approaches, notary schemes, and
hash time hashlocks. These include sidechains, notaries, and HLTCs.
Interoperability techniques across public blockchains are well-known
and widely used.
sidechains and relays:
sidechains are seperate blockchains that connected to another blockchain
through a two-way peg to help process some of the data from the main
blockchain. Main blockchains are slow and if we want to speed them up,
we have to find a secondary method to make them faster. These
solutions are called layer 2 scaling solutions. But most sidechains are
little more centralized than the main chain but this is okay because we
will trade of security for speed just we will not do it on the main chain.
They also need their own miners and consensus mechanisms. sidechains
are called two way peg because of the bidirectional ways. the two
processes are locking up and releasing. When we move our coins and
tokens from the main chain to the side chain, we have to lock them up
otherwise I’d have a bunch of free tokens on both chains. Locking them
up usually means that they go to a wallet or a contract controlled by a
machine or code. And we have to do something special to get them back.
Anyway when we lock up our coins on the main chain, we get our coins
and tokens on the side chain. This allows us to move things back and
forth without allowing people to duplicate their coins. The second part
of the peg is called releasing. So when you locked up your tokens and
coins in the main chain, the protocol accepted them and actually gave
me free coins and tokens on the side chains that are representation of
what we have on the main chain.
notary scheme:
Notary scheme involve a notary or an entity that monitors multiple
chains and triggers transactions in a chain upon an event taking place on
another chain like binance, coin base, kraken. Basically their
intermediaries like centralized exchanges. They are mostly centralized
yet they offer speed and comfort over more decentralized solutions.
They allow asset transfers between multiple different blockchains.
Hashed Time-lock:
HTLC allows transaction of assets in a trustless way. They are
essentially programmable escrows and they are the technology behind
atomic swaps. It allows fair exchange without a trusted third party but it
only works if the sender and receiver provide their secret to each other
and complete the transaction within the time lock. Both need to be
online for this. Each time lock contract must be set up individually for
each use. Its not interoperability in the sense that data flows freely
throughout the networks. Although HTLC can be chained together. They
can be used to create a medium of exploring the spread

Blockchain of Blockchains:
They are frameworks that allow the creation of application specific
blockchains that interoperate with each other. So they provide
interoperability between blockchains based on the same architecture. For
instance, Polkadot and Cosmos, the most widely adopted Blockchain of
Blockchains in terms of market capitalization”. Very interesting
solutions, and quite promising. Polkadot and Cosmos are the most
widely adopted Blockchain of Blockchains in terms of market
capitalization. Polkadot has a relay chain and para chain architecture.
The relay chain is like the main chain of polka dot. Para chain is like an
application specific chain that can connect to a relay chain and benefit
from the security of the main chain. Polka dot has sdk called substrate
which allows and developers to build application specific blockchain
and easily connected to polka dot. Cosmos on the other hand has hub
and zones architecture. Hub is like the airport and zone is like the
country. Cosmos has entered blockchain communication protocol IBC as
its backbone to connect many blockchains together. Cosmos also has
cosmos SDK. Framework for other developers to easily build on
cosmos. Cosmos is also more flexible than polka dot since it allows
other blockchains to be fully sovereign. Other chains can have their own
consensus and validators. It gives individual chain more control whereas
polka dot implements under a shared security system Chain of chains
like polka dot and cosmos enable great interoperability within the
ecosystem but to connect to other blockchains outside like ethereum or
to use bitcoin an ecosystem is still a hardwork. However it is still not
interoperability in the purest sense. For instance, to interoperate with
eos, a different blockchain a mechanism similar to side chains still need
to be build

Hybrid Connectors: Hybrid Connectors are interoperability solutions

that are not Public Connectors or Blockchain of Blockchains. Directed to
both public and private blockchains, Hybrid Connectors attempt at
delivering a “blockchain abstraction layer”, capable of exposing a set of
uniform operations allowing a dApp to interact with blockchains without
the need of using different APIs”. These are emerging solutions that will
connect most types of blockchains, other DLTs, and centralized systems.
Trusted Relays:
Trusted Relays are entities that redirect transactions from a source
blockchain to a target blockchain. They work mainly in private
blockchains only because participants using Trusted relays need to trust
each other in order to relay information accurately. Hence the
knowledge about each other’s identity is crucial. Hyperledger Cactus is a
good example.
Blockchain agnostic protocols:
It allows interoperability between multiple different blockchains by
providing an abstraction layer. The various blockchain can then settle by
using the abstraction layer for accountability. In a more simple term they
act kind of like a translator between blockchains. This work with both
private and public blockchains.
Blockchain migrators:
blockchain migrators allows the migration of a complete state of a
blockchain to another blockchain. These are specifically designed for
migration incase of disaster or performance issues and was specifically
designed for enterprise use cases
Three main takeaways are almost all technologies still rely on a trusted
third party. So if there was a new technology that allowed trustless third
parties, that would be very interesting. Another thing is that all of them
are used for asset transfers. But what about smart contracts? There needs
to be some ability to enforce a smart contract on one blockchain if a
condition presents itself on another blockchain. Only one project we
could find that does this is Quant. Also the biggest challenge today is the
lack of standardization across the industry. There needs to be some
agreed form of standardization across all blockchains in order for in
order for there to be scalable interoperability. So there needs to be some
sort of global effort similarly how TCPip was maintained by global
oraganization.
Comparative discussion among them:
Public connectors are the most cited among industry and academia, as
they provide practical solutions to real-world problems: asset transfers.
It seems that the merge of sidechain and protocols relying on an escrow
party (enforced by smart contracts) are the most suitable solutions for
interoperability among public blockchains. Token exchange is arguably
no longer the whole scope of blockchain interoperability. However,
creating and maintaining a decentralized application using several
blockchains was difficult - and hence the Blockchain of Blockchains
solutions appeared. Instead, various interoperability approaches emerged
in the last years, whereby many of them aimed at generalizing
blockchain interoperability. In particular, emerging solutions can be
categorized as Hybrid Connectors, which provide cross-blockchain
communication, and Blockchain of Blockchains, which allow an end-
user to create customized, interoperable blockchains at the expense of
vendor lock-in. While Blockchain of Blockchains, such as Cosmos or
Polkadot provide a consensus engine and a security infrastructure to
build blockchains, blockchain of blockchains aims at developing
solutions using different infrastructures. In particular, Cosmos and
Polkadot might progress towards homogenity. They provide
interoperability capabilities, mainly on the chains relying on their
technology and other desirable features. These solutions are promising
but are challenging to integrate with legacy systems and, generally,
private blockchains. Therefore, Blockchain of Blockchains can provide
an optimal leveraging for public infrastructures, but that is not
necessarily the case for private blockchains and hence the hybrid
connectors started appearing.
Hybrid Connectors, specifically blockchain migrators and blockchain of
blockchains, progress towards a user-centric, blockchain-agnostic view,
enabling enterprise-connected CC-dApps. Arguably, the most suitable
solution for connecting private blockchains is the usage of blockchain-
agnostic protocols; however, they do not grant backward compatibility
(as all previous solutions have to be adapted to integrate the adopted
communication protocol). To overcome this fact, the short-medium-term
solution would be using trusted relays. An interesting way for trusted
relays to venture is by decentralizing the escrow party: from a set of
trusted validators to a network of public nodes. It then follows from this
survey that one could perceive trusted relays and blockchain-agnostic
protocols to be good solutions to link private blockchains; and sidechain,
smart-contract-based protocols suitable to solve interoperability among
public blockchains. A network of blockchain engine-powered
blockchains can be leveraged using Hybrid Connectors. For instance,
there is a possible synergy between Cosmos and the Interledger
Protocol: when a user wants to make an in-app payment with fiat
currency (e.g., dollars) within a Cosmos zone, he or she can rely on the
interledger protocol as a payment rail. If using cryptocurrencies to pay
(e.g., Bitcoin), the interledger router can route the transactions for a
payment channel (e.g., Lightning Network), providing more trustful
interaction. To connect this ecosystem to private blockchains, bridges
have to be developed. To make such bridges trustable, a possible
solution would be to elect a group of validator nodes, via an overlay
network, that participates in the consensus of public blockchains and
private blockchains. This way, cross-chain, and cross-blockchain
transactions can be endorsed.
While Public Connectors methods are commonly used nowadays, we
focus on Blockchain of Blockchains and Hybrid Connectors. Blockchain
of Blockchains and Hybrid Connectors allows interoperability between
blockchains and other distributed ledger technologies and enterprise
systems in the medium term. This promotes the development of
blockchain interoperability standards.
Research directions:
Define a blockchain interoperability maturity model, modeling
interoperability at its various layers (e.g., technological, semantic,
organizational).Model the different views on the various types of
interoperability, according to different stakeholders (e.g., the provider’s
technical view on a cross-blockchain dApp versus the semantic view of
the end-user on the same cross-blockchain dApp).Study blockchain
interoperability semantics by exploring, for example, the research area
of view integration
Public Connectors:
  Research on how permissioned blockchains can benefit from
sidechains to improve scalability and privacy
 Develop protocols to allow fiat money exchange, higher liquidity
on decentralized exchanges. Conversely, improve the level of
privacy and security of centralized exchanges.

Blockchain of Blockchains:
 Integration of existing blockchain systems with Blockchain of
Blockchains.
 Study how Blockchain of Blockchains can provide a reliable
interoperability scheme bridging permissioned blockchains and
permissionless blockchains.
 Connect Blockchain of Blockchains to both centralized systems
and decentralized ledger systems (e.g., connect Polkadot to Visa)

Hybrid Connectors:
 Decentralize the trust of trusted relays by integrating them with
public blockchains (e.g., by submitting the state periodically to a
public blockchain);
 Study how blockchain-agnostic protocols can be easily adapted to
existing ledgers.
 Explore the blockchain of blockchains approach as an advance in
dependable blockchain-based applications.
 Improve atomicity and consistency guarantees on cross-blockchain
decentralized applications.
 Explore blockchain migration across public and permissioned
ledgers. Such migration schemes can be decentralized and adapt to
functional and non-functional requirements imposed by
stakeholders.
  Explore blockchain migration via non-trusted relays (e.g., using a
set of public escrow nodes following a protocol).
 Develop frameworks for multiple blockchain management. Such
frameworks should respond to multiple stakeholder needs,
decentralizing trust.
 Model integration abstraction layers that enable the development
of universally connected contracts.
 Research on the visualization of CC-Txs.

sidechains are most suitable for public blockchains but creating and
maintaining a decentralized application with multiple public and private
blockchains becomes a challenge as you would need to build multiple
custom sidechains. This is possible but it takes time and effort

BOBs, solutions make this easier however BOBs don’t offer

interoperability in the truest sense
 Take Polkadot for example.
Unless the ecosystem has compelling selection of cryptos that fullfills
our decentralized apps need, still we need to use side chains. This does
not mean they are bad options to invest in. It’s just that the current
ecosystems are still very young and competition between them is fierce.
So we have to carefully invest in any one of them. HTLC are also not
interoperability in the truest sense. They essentially contracts agreed
upon by the sender and receiver. So both entities must complete the
transaction on agreed upon time frame. So value does not flow freely
between networks here. This more of a mechanism for trustless trade
between two entities. Notary schemes can be disregarded as they are
mostly centralized. They are basically centralized exchanges. They
aren’t interoperability we are looking for here. Trusted relays are
interesting but are mainly for private blockchains. For public
blockchains this would be a hard sell as most solutions have a central
 point of failure which is the entities
doing the relaying. As a result these are mainly for private blockchains
with vetted memberships unless there is some sort of trustless
decentralized relays this won’t work for public blockchains. Blockchain
migrators are also mainly for private blockchains. The need for
migration is useful for enterprise use cases. However most solutions are
still theoratical and with both trusted relays and blockchain migrators
there isn’t any project we can realistically invest in given they are both
mainly for private blockchains. finally we have blockchain agnostic
protocols which is the most viable solution for connecting both public
and private blockchains. They are easier to use in compared to building
sidechains. side chains takes time to build and are complex operations. If
there was no sidechains for specific use case, blockchain agnostic
protocol is the best approach as its easier. So the optimal selection for
interoperability could be BCagnosticpro>sidechains>BOB but with a lot
of effort and time.
So from blockchain agnostic protocol, there’s xrp and xlm as a proxy for
interledger protocol. The quant protocol comes closest to solving
interoperability issues in the blockchain. It acts a pay
Some already done blockchain architectures and their mechanisms
The “internet of blockchains” approach. Zhu et al. define several layers
for a blockchain in Qingyi Zhu, Seng W Loke, Rolando Trujillo-Rasua,
Frank Jiang, and Yong Xiang. 2019. Applications of Distributed Ledger
Technologies to the Internet of Things: A Survey. Comput. Surveys 52, 6
(2019), 120:1–120:34. Here the data layer defines the representation of
data in the blockchain. The network layer defines the type of nodes in
the peer to peer network. The consensus layer represents the consensus
algorithm the network uses and its security assumption. The contract
layer represents the execution environment for smart contracts which
provides the foundation for the application layer, which include the
blockchain enabled business logic. Also we can see in H Jin and X Dai.
2018. Towards a novel architecture for enabling interoperability
amongst multiple blockchains. In IEEE 38th International Conference
on Distributed Computing Systems. [118] Sandra Johnson, Peter
Robinson, and John Braina, he proposed the data, network, consensus,
contract and application layers. On the other hand in , Luo Kan, Yu Wei,
Amjad Hafiz Muhammad, Wang Siyuan, Gao Linchao, and Hu Kai.
2018. A Multiple Blockchains Architecture on Inter-Blockchain
Communication. Proceedings - 2018 IEEE 18th International
Conference on Software Quality, Reliability, and Security Companion,
QRS-C 2018 (2018), 139–145 the basic, blockchain, multi-chain
communication and application layers. An architecture for interoperable
blockchains can be found in pg-44.
The given architecture has the concept of Autonomous System(AS) (or
routing domain) and gateway which means a network ecosystem
operating with specific rules like under an administrative domain. Each
blockchains are envisioned as an autonomous system, which
communicates to others through a cross-blockchain protocol.