Overview
ORMP stands for Oracle Relayer Messaging Protocol. It is an omni-chain messaging protocol that can be used to build decentralized applications, or Dapps, that operate across multiple blockchains with minimal effort for developers. It's named after the two important roles involved in message cross-chaining:
- The Oracle
In this context refers to any source of credible off-chain data. In ORMP, this data refers specifically to the root of an incremental merkle tree composed of cross-chain messages. We refer to this as the "message root" or "msgroot" for short. The message root is used to verify the authenticity of the cross-chain messages. The Oracle can either be a traditional off-chain data service, or a data feed based on the light client. Both of these methods can be used to provide the message root of another chain.
- The Relayer
It’s an off-chain piece of software that's responsible for taking messages from one blockchain and relaying them to another. It queries the source chain to find messages that have not yet been relayed, and then relays the message and its proof to the target chain. Once the target chain receives the message, along with the msg_root provided by the Oracle, the target channel can verify the authenticity of the message and process it further if it is found to be valid.
These two roles play a vital role in the entire process of sending, verifying, and receiving messages.