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Interledger (ILP) is a cross-ledger collaboration protocol initiated by the famous Ripple. Interledger focuses on achieving a unified payment standard that connects different assets of each ledger, rather than a separate blockchain, and it does not have its own token. The ledgers supported here include blockchain, banks, p2p payments, traditional ACH, mobile payment institutions, and even Real-time Gross Settlement (RTGS) operated by the central bank.
Between the payer and the payee, a series of "connectors" play a central role. The architecture here is a bit similar to the network layer in the Internet model (previously, NKN, Mainframe, and Lanhua's brief review are all involved). Each connector, like a router node, tries to forward ILP packets closer to the end point, and finally converges to the end point. Between the payer and the connector, between the connector, and between the connector and the payee, conditional transfers are completed through HTLC, so as to achieve safe multi-hop payment. And each participant only needs to trust the directly connected upper and lower homes.
In fact, InterLedger further generalizes HTLC into HTLA (Hashed Timelock Agreement). This agreement executed by a third party can be used to execute HTLC between ledgers that do not support HTLC.