What is Cross-Chain Message Passing (XCMP)?

Cross-chain describes the transfer of data, tokenized assets, or other types of information from one independent blockchain network to another. On the Polkadot network, XCMP is a specialized mechanism used to send information between different blockchains linked together on Polkadot's interoperable network. The XCMP system relies on Polkadot's collator nodes to route messages between blockchains.