Research on cross-chain and interoperability for blockchain system %D 2021 %R 10.19682/j.cnki.1005-8885.2021.0029 %J Journal of China Universities of Posts and Telecommunications %P 1-17 %V 28 %N 5 %X
At present, there is an urgent need for blockchain interoperability technology to realize interconnection between various blockchains, data communication and value transfer between blockchains, so as to break the ‘ value silo’ phenomenon of each blockchain. Firstly, it lists what people understand about the concept of interoperability. Secondly, it gives the key technical issues of cross-chain, including cross-chain mechanism, interoperability, eventual consistency, and universality. Then, the implementation of each cross-chain key technology is analyzed, including Hash-locking, two-way peg, notary schemes, relay chain scheme, cross-chain protocol, and global identity system. Immediately after that, five typical cross-chain systems are introduced and comparative analysis is made. In addition, two examples of cross-chain programmability and their analysis are given. Finally, the current state of cross-chain technology is summarized from two aspects: key technology implementation and cross-chain application enforcement. The cross-chain technology as a whole has formed a centralized fixed mechanism, as well as a trend of modular design, and some of the solutions to mature applications were established in the relevant standards organizations, and the cross-chain technology architecture tends to be unified, which is expected to accelerate the evolution of the open cross-chain network that supports the real needs of the interconnection of all chains.