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Relaying

Celestia uses IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol) to enable cross-chain transfer of tokens. To support this capability it relies on relayers, processes that can be run by anyone which constantly scan for outbound packets on one chain and submits these packets alongside corresponding proofs on the destination chain. This section briefly describes how one can setup a relayer. There are two standard implementations:

For this guide, we will look just at Hermes.

Setup​

Install​

  1. Download the latest version of the binary from Releases.
  2. Create the directory for the binary: mkdir -p $HOME/.hermes/bin
  3. Extract the binary: tar -C $HOME/.hermes/bin/ -vxzf $ARCHIVE_NAME
  4. Update PATH to point to the binary, either in .bashrc or .zshrc

You should now have it installed:

> hermes version

hermes v1.3.0

Configure​

Hermes uses a config.toml file to instruct the process. This should be placed in $HOME/.hermes/config.toml. You can try to do this automatically by typing the command:

hermes config auto --chains cosmoshub testnets/celestiatestnet --output $HOME/.hermes/config.toml

This takes information from the chain-registry. If the information is not there, you will have to enter it manually by opening the config.toml. You can read the self-documented example here. You will be required to find RPC and gRPC endpoints.

Keys​

Next step is to add keys for the accounts that will be paying the fees to transfer the tokens across. Assuming you have an existing account with a known mnemonic, you can simply save the words into a file:

echo word1 ... word12or24 > mnemonic_file

Next, run the following:

hermes keys add --chain blockspacerace-1 --mnemonic-file mnemonic_file

You can confirm the keys by executing:

hermes keys list --chain blockspacerace-1

Make sure you have added the keys and have sufficient funds for each chain you are relaying across.

Running​

Now, you should be able to start the process. As a quick sanity check, first run

hermes config validate

Then begin by running

hermes start

As with other processes, you can use systemd to manage hermes in the background. For more information on setting up clients, connections and channels, use the help command within the cli or refer to Hermes website.

Transfer​

The Celestia state machine is built with the IBC transfer module, allowing for the native celestia token to be transferred to any other IBC enabled chain. Transfer can be initialized through the celestia-appd CLI. Information can be found via the help label as follows:

celestia-appd tx ibc-transfer transfer --help

Token filter​

The transfer module uses a token filter middleware which serves to prevent non-native Celestia tokens from being on Celestia. If a user is to try to send a token from another chain across, it will be simply rejected and the token returned back to the user.