- XCM operates in Chain, Smart Contracts and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
- It also supports communication between networks with different consensus mechanisms, such as Bitcoin and Polkadot.
- Polkadot founder Gavin Wood announces XCM v3 finally merged Tuesday, Jan 17th 2023,
polka dotThe scalable heterogeneous blockchain ecosystem is currently one of the strongest networks in the crypto industry, and a new feature to boot.
The “Cross-Consensus Message” Former (XCM) version 3 of the interoperability blockchain has finally been deployed, according to Polkadot founder Gavin Wood. Wood, who also founded Kusama, Ethereum and Parity Technologies, announced on Tuesday that XCM v3 has arrived. Development for fifteen months.
After exactly 15 months of development, @polka dot XCM version 3 has been merged. It enables bridges, cross-chain locking, exchanges, NFTs, conditionals, context-tracking, and more. https://t.co/dqcLXOmDa9
— Gavin Wood (@gavofyork) January 17, 2023
How does XCM work?
XCM It began with cross-chain communication between different chains at its core, before the change to cross-consensus messaging – with the aim of leveraging a language by which different consensus systems could communicate.
XCM provides instructions on how to compose, send, and interpret messages across design chains. The destination chain is one that executes instructions with the support of programmable, reliable, and rich data.
Basically, XCM is the standard through which protocol developers can define the data and origins that their particular chains can send or receive. For example, a developer can leverage XCM to allow communication between bitcoind (a proof-of-work network) and Polkadot (a proof-of-stake network,
But XCM v3 deployments do much more than just enable cross-consensus communication between chains. It can work on smart contracts, bridges, pallets, exchanges and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
There is one example where the message format allows interoperability between parachains, removing the need to use bridges.