Protocol Overview
Our Commerce Layer protocol enables complex commercial agreements across multiple blockchain networks, offering a flexible, secure, and cost-effective platform for decentralized commerce.
What's the Problem?
Implementing decentralized commercial agreements today presents significant challenges. Businesses need to either:
Rely on Specific Vendors: These vendors offer niche services like API access to crypto exchanges, limiting flexibility and increasing dependence on third-party services.
Develop Custom Solutions: This involves substantial effort in creating, auditing, and deploying smart contracts, building trust with participants, and ensuring the system's security and functionality. Such bespoke solutions are resource-intensive and costly, especially when extending across multiple blockchain networks.
These issues are further complicated when businesses aim to operate across multiple blockchain networks, as the available solutions become either too narrow or prohibitively expensive.
Protocol Overview
Our decentralized commerce layer is designed to overcome these challenges by providing a flexible, secure, and cost-effective solution for implementing complex commercial agreements across multiple blockchain networks. The solution features:
Cryptographic Signing Layer: Allows users to securely sign various types of commercial agreements.
Multi-Network Smart Contracts: Pre-deployed smart contracts on multiple blockchain networks interact with the cryptographic signing layer, enabling seamless multi-network commerce.
Detailed Insights and Unique Features
Supported Networks
Initially supporting Polygon (PoS) and Ethereum (PoS), our protocol will expand to other EVM-compatible L1s and Solana, among others. This phased approach ensures robust performance and security before scaling to additional networks.
This phased network support strategy ensures that we can focus on optimizing performance and security on each network before expanding, which helps build a robust foundation for future growth.
Security Measures
Our protocol employs several advanced security measures:
EIP712 Signed Typed Data: Ensures that agreements are tied to specific contracts and chains, preventing cross-chain replay attacks.
Verification Protocols: Agreements are only processed if the signed message is verified and matches vendor agreements.
By utilizing EIP712, we not only enhance security but also standardize the signing process, making it easier for developers to integrate and for users to understand the authenticity of their transactions.
User Experience
The user interface is designed to be intuitive and reassuring:
Human-Readable Agreements: Agreements are presented using familiar terms like "Stablecoins" and verified company names, rather than complex token addresses.
This approach not only simplifies the user experience but also builds trust, as users can easily understand and verify the agreements they are entering into, reducing the likelihood of errors or misunderstandings.
On-Chain Functions
Commerce Language Resolver Contract
Function: This contract exists on each supported network to interpret and resolve commercial terms into specific blockchain entities.
Example Resolutions:
"Stablecoins": Resolves to the appropriate contract addresses and tokens on the network.
"Coinsub, Inc (coinsub.io)": Resolves to the specific account addresses associated with the entity on the network.
Agreement Processor
Function: This component takes signed agreements and processes the terms through the commerce language resolver.
Process:
Input: Signed cryptographic agreements.
Resolution: Uses the commerce language resolver to interpret terms.
Creation: Establishes a blockchain agreement that can execute transactions as per the agreement terms.
Minable Transactions
Our protocol also supports the creation of agreements that enable minable transactions. These transactions are:
Decentralized Processing: Can be processed by decentralized nodes, ensuring a decentralized and trustless execution environment.
Fee-Generating: Nodes that process these transactions receive a fee, incentivizing participation.
Trigger Conditions: Transactions are only triggered according to the pre-agreed terms specified in the agreement, ensuring that all conditions are met before execution.
No Centralized Service Required: These transactions do not rely on a centralized service, enhancing security and reducing potential points of failure.
How It Works
User Signs Agreement: A user signs a commercial agreement using cryptographic methods, specifying terms in human-readable language.
Terms Resolution: The signed agreement is sent to the agreement processor, which uses the commerce language resolver to translate terms into specific blockchain addresses and entities.
Blockchain Agreement Creation: The processor creates a blockchain-based agreement that can autonomously manage transactions according to the resolved terms.
Minable Transaction Setup: The agreement includes minable transactions that decentralized nodes can process, earning fees and ensuring decentralized execution.
Key Benefits
Flexibility: Supports various commercial agreements, such as recurring payments, metered billing, and escrowed funds.
Security: Utilizes robust cryptographic methods, verification protocols, and decentralized transaction processing.
Cost-Effective: Eliminates the need for bespoke solutions and vendor dependencies, reducing implementation costs.
Decentralization: Minable transactions enhance decentralization by leveraging network nodes for transaction processing without centralized control.
Integration for Merchants
Merchants can easily integrate our solution into their systems through:
APIs: Facilitate the creation of sessions, real-time notifications, and verification of payments and participant status.
Webhooks: Provide real-time updates to vendors about agreement status and payments.
Insight: Our integration tools are designed to be developer-friendly, reducing the time and effort required to adopt the solution. This lowers the barrier to entry for merchants and accelerates the adoption of decentralized commercial agreements.
Compliance
We ensure regulatory compliance through stringent AML and compliance checks for all participating addresses:
AML and Compliance Checks: Only addresses that pass our checks can participate in commercial agreements.
Insight: By embedding compliance checks into the protocol, we streamline the process for merchants, helping them meet regulatory requirements effortlessly and focus on their core business operations.
Premier Use Case: Recurring Crypto Payments
Our primary use case is enabling recurring crypto payments, similar to subscription services. This is how it works:
User Agreement: The user signs a cryptographic agreement for a recurring payment. For example, a $15 USD value in stablecoins.
Network Translation: Our commerce layer translates this agreement to the appropriate stablecoins on multiple blockchain networks, ensuring the correct value is processed regardless of the network.
Simplified Merchant Interaction: Merchants do not need to create specific technology for each network. They only need to price their product in USD value and can receive the correct amount on a recurring basis in the stablecoins supported by the networks their customers use.
Benefits for Merchants
Multi-Network Commerce: Merchants can engage in commerce across multiple networks without building out expensive infrastructure.
Ease of Use: They price their product in USD value and receive payments in the appropriate stablecoins, simplifying the process significantly.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces the need for bespoke solutions, lowering the overall cost of implementation.
Additional Agreements Supported
Our protocol is versatile and can supports various types of commercial agreements:
Metered Billing Agreement
Description: Facilitates usage-based billing with centralized authority reporting and periodic payment calculations.
Use Case: Ideal for services like cloud storage, utilities, or telecommunications.
Insight: This agreement type allows businesses to offer flexible, usage-based pricing models, aligning costs with actual usage and enhancing customer satisfaction.
Escrowed Funds Distribution
Description: Involves holding funds in escrow and distributing them based on designated conditions and attesting authorities.
Use Case: Suitable for milestone-based payments, real estate transactions, and secure transactions requiring condition-based fund release.
Escrow agreements build trust between parties by ensuring that funds are only released when predefined conditions are met, reducing the risk of disputes.
Two-Party Agreement with Conditional Transfers
Description: Manages conditional fund transfers between two parties, validated by a centralized authority and possibly multiple attesters.
Use Case: Applicable for partnerships, contract work, and business arrangements requiring conditional fund transfers.
This agreement type enables more complex transaction structures, allowing businesses to set up nuanced conditions for fund transfers, thereby facilitating more sophisticated business arrangements.
Expanded Benefits for Merchants
Versatility: A single platform to handle various types of commercial agreements reduces the need for multiple vendors or bespoke solutions.
Trust and Security: Escrow and attesting authorities enhance trust and security in transactions, fostering confidence in complex agreements.
Efficiency: Automation of validation and payment processes minimizes manual effort and errors, ensuring smooth and timely transactions.
Conclusion
Our decentralized commerce signing layer provides a comprehensive, secure, and user-friendly solution for implementing commercial agreements across multiple blockchain networks. By addressing the limitations of current solutions and offering advanced features, our protocol empowers businesses to engage in decentralized commerce with confidence and ease. This document outlines the key aspects of our protocol, demonstrating how it can transform the landscape of decentralized commercial agreements.
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