# IBC ## What is IBC? Inter Blockchain Communication, or IBC, is a protocol that’s part of the Cosmos technology stack, allowing seamless communication between blockchains. It’s designed to overcome one of the core challenges of legacy public blockchains, which is that they were built to operate as silos, with no opportunity to transfer data or tokens between platforms. IBC enables BitSong to interoperate with any other IBC-enabled blockchain in the Cosmos ecosystem. Furthermore, with innovations such as the Gravity Bridge, IBC is also being used to power bridges to non-Cosmos blockchain ecosystems like Ethereum. In practice, IBC allows BTSG to become listed on any Cosmos DEX such as Gravity DEX or Osmosis or others that will be deployed in the future. It will also allow anyone holding NFTs, Fan Tokens, or BTSG, the opportunity to use them in applications on other compatible blockchains. For instance, as the Cosmos DeFi ecosystem develops, someone could use the value stored in their BitSong-issued NFTs as collateral to take out a loan. Please note that this documentation will be updated as and when such integrations become available to users. IBC is also a critical enabler for the Liquidity Module. ### IBC Message Lifecycle * Sending a packet (Source chain) * Receiving a packet (Destination chain) * Sending an acknowledgement (Destination chain) * Receiving an acknowledgement (Source chain) ### Light Clients #### Expired Clients #### Upgrading Clients #### Supported Light Clients ### IBC Token Hashes ### IBC & CosmWasm --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.bitsong.io/features-and-modules/ibc.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.