Bridging traditional and new financial systems
The tbDEX protocol creates a bridge, based on open standards, that connects the world of fiat to internet-native currencies and assets. True to open source practices, tbDEX is a protocol that is available to everyone, but owned by no one.
Emily Chiu, COO of TBD
“tbDEX bridges the gap between the old and the new – enabling anyone to benefit from decentralized payment systems and digital assets, with easy on- and off-ramps to legacy payment systems and fiat currencies. For developers, adopting the tbDEX protocol unlocks global liquidity for their customers, while avoiding the complexity associated with bespoke API integrations with each and every provider.”
tbDEX is an open, interoperable protocol for an inclusive financial world
tbDEX is an open financial protocol developed to power new ways to move money around the world that unlock frictionless commerce and global financial access. Using open source protocols and common standards, it provides developers, enterprises, entrepreneurs and even governments with a universal infrastructure and language to move value around the world in a more inclusive, efficient, and trusted way. At it’s core, tbDEX:
Unlocks frictionless payments, commerce and liquidity
Enables counterparties to establish mutual trust and compliance
Creates common standards and an open network that anyone can join and no one party owns or controls
Core tbDEX pillars
Core to tbDEX’s innovation is the creation of a trust protocol for the exchange of value. This makes bitcoin, stablecoins, other digital assets - and even traditional fiat - more useful by creating a standardized way to establish trust and conduct transactions on the internet through an internet-native value exchange protocol.
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs) provide a technical solution for the secure exchange of identity information and proof of verification without a centralized intermediary. Used on tbDEX, DIDs and VCs allow two parties to directly negotiate the information they need from one another to complete a transaction.
The power of Verifiable Credentials
Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are core to establishing trust and compliance on the tbDEX protocol. VCs are defined by open standards (such as those maintained by the W3C and OpenID Foundation) to enable digital claims to be shared in a secure, and independently verifiable way.
VCs provide a standard way to present physical credentials across the digital world in a way that is cryptographically secure, privacy respecting, and machine verifiable. These credentials can be proof of identity, proof of driver’s license, or any other kind of credential, securely attached to an identifier that you own and can securely prove is yours.
Trust & Compliance
The protocol enables participants to securely validate counterparty identity and establish trust, as well as helping to fulfill desired compliance with relevant laws and regulations. tbDEX’s messaging protocol enables Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) and counterparties to discover, negotiate, and confirm transactions. Once transaction details are agreed upon, participants execute and settle trades outside of the tbDEX protocol.
Example tbDEX interaction
At its core, tbDEX is a messaging protocol that negotiates trusted transactions between participants on the network. Value is never exchanged on the protocol itself. Think of tbDEX as a universal language the global community can use to find one another and establish the trust required to agree on transactions. Once details are confirmed between counterparties and any compliance requirements satisfied, participants execute and settle transactions outside of the protocol. Let’s look at an example interaction for remittances and off-ramps to see how it all works.
