Clear DefinitionsInterchain Security
2 min read
Pronunciation
[ˈɪn-tər-tʃeɪn sɪ-ˈkjʊr-ɪ-ti]
Analogy
Think of interchain security as smaller cities sharing a well-established police force with a larger city. Just as small towns might contract with a neighboring metropolitan area's police department rather than building their own force from scratch—gaining immediate access to trained officers, equipment, and established protocols while still maintaining their own local laws and governance—new blockchains can "rent" security from a mature blockchain's validator network. This gives them instant protection against attacks without having to attract their own secure validator set, while still controlling their own rules and operations.
Definition
A blockchain security model where multiple independent chains share a common validator set for consensus, allowing smaller or newer blockchains to leverage the security and validator decentralization of a more established network. Interchain security enables specialized application-specific blockchains to launch with robust security from day one while maintaining sovereignty over their state and governance.
Key Points Intro
Interchain security provides several key benefits for blockchain ecosystems with multiple specialized chains.
Key Points
Security bootstrapping: Enables new chains to launch with a high security threshold from their first block.
Economic efficiency: Allows validators to secure multiple chains simultaneously without dividing their stake or resources.
Aligned incentives: Creates economic connections between chains where attacks on consumer chains would damage provider chain value.
Sovereignty preservation: Maintains independent governance and execution while only delegating consensus security.
Example
A specialized DeFi blockchain focused on derivatives trading launches using interchain security provided by the Cosmos Hub. Instead of recruiting and incentivizing its own validator set—a process that typically takes months or years to achieve sufficient decentralization and stake—the derivatives chain uses the same validator set already securing billions in value on the Cosmos Hub. Validators run both chain software and validate blocks for both chains, receiving additional rewards from the derivatives chain. If validators attempted to attack the derivatives chain, they would risk their substantial stake on the Cosmos Hub, creating strong economic security from inception while the derivatives chain maintains complete control over its application logic, parameters, and governance.
Technical Deep Dive
Interchain security implementations typically follow a provider-consumer model where a provider chain with an established validator set extends consensus services to consumer chains. From a technical perspective, validators run separate node instances for each chain but use unified staking and slashing mechanisms. The implementation requires cross-chain communication protocols to synchronize validator set changes, evidence of misbehavior, and reward distributions. Most systems employ reputation systems and differential slashing where attacks on consumer chains result in slashing on the provider chain, creating asymmetric security guarantees. Advanced implementations support varied validator sets where consumer chains use a subset of provider validators or implement additional validation requirements. The most sophisticated systems also implement stake-weighted voting systems for provider chains to determine which consumer chains to secure and under what terms, creating market mechanisms for security provision. For defending against long-range attacks, checkpointing systems frequently record consumer chain state hashes to the provider chain.
Security Warning
While interchain security protects against consensus-level attacks, it does not prevent vulnerabilities in the application logic of consumer chains. Additionally, if a provider chain secures too many consumer chains, resource contention during high traffic periods could lead to performance degradation across the network.
Caveat
Interchain security creates potential centralization concerns as multiple chains rely on the same validator set, potentially limiting ecosystem diversity and creating systemic risks. Consumer chains typically have lower prioritization than the provider chain during network congestion. Additionally, the governance of security parameters becomes complex when balancing the interests of provider and consumer chains, particularly around validator rewards, slashing conditions, and validator set composition.
Interchain Security - Related Articles
No related articles for this term.