The protocol enables participants to securely validate counterparty identity and trust, as well as desired compliance with relevant laws and regulations.

After trust establishment, tbDEX’s standard messaging protocol enables Participating Financial Institutions and counterparties to discover, negotiate, and confirm transactions using a bid and ask system. Once transaction details are confirmed, participants execute and settle these trades outside of the protocol.

Verifiable Credentials (VCs) are core to establishing trust and compliance on the tbDEX protocol. VCs are an open standard established by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that enable digital claims to be easily shared in a secure, tamper-proof, and independently verifiable way using globally recognised standards.

VCs provide a standard way to express physical credentials across the digital world in a was 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.

TBD is pioneering the use of VCs for compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CTF), and sanctions regulations to ensure that networks built on the tbDEX protocol are ones that regulators and regulated financial institutions can trust.

The tbDEX protocol allows any organization that shares the vision of a decentralized and open global payments system to establish new services and benefit from an ever-growing network of participants.

The network effects grow stronger with each additional participant. Participants that will bring this to life include:

Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) are entities that offer liquidity. PFIs can be, but are not limited to, fintech companies, regional or large institutional banks, and other financial institutions. PFIs have access to payment systems and the ability to facilitate fiat exchanges for digital assets (or vice versa). Any PFI can run a node on the network without third-party approval by any individual, federation, or organization. At scale, a competitive network of PFIs brings more liquidity and competition, resulting in lower fees and faster transaction times.

Wallets and Applications. Wallets or apps facilitate exchanges with PFIs. Self-custody wallets and non-financial apps may also seek liquidity on the tbDEX network. Wallet and app developers may design features and functionality tailored to their desired user experience. For example, a wallet could algorithmically select the PFI based on speed, cost, or track record — or delegate that choice to the owner of the wallet.

Financial use cases on tbDEX will be unlocked through a network of credible identity issuers and verifiers. Examples could be authoritative issuers, such as a government agency issuing a physical identity document as a VC. Digital identity verification (IDV) providers globally can play a key role in verifying the information upon which the VCs rely. As such, a financial institution can issue a VC based on its existing identity verification and KYC onboarding process. It’s up to verifiers to decide whether to trust the VC based on their regulatory obligations and the level of assurance they have in the issuer.

Any potential participants who would like to learn more about tbDEX can download the whitepaper and connect with the TBD team by emailing partnerships@tbd.email.

Yellow Card Becomes the First PFI on tbDEX, Unlocking Off-Ramps into 20 African Countries While the tbDEX protocol can facilitate many use cases, cross border payments and commerce are amongst the first that TBD is exploring. Earlier this year, Yellow Card built an implementation of tbDEX that facilitated the exchange of bitcoin into Kenyan shillings, deposited in an M-PESA account in real time. This used the tbDEX protocol to negotiate the terms of the asset exchange using tbDEX messages; and establish compliance using sanctions VCs to fulfill Yellow Card’s legal and regulatory obligations.

Today, Yellow Card establishes the first PFI on the network. Yellow Card offers off-ramps into both bank and mobile money accounts as well as liquidity across 20 African countries, including Botswana , Cameroon , DR Congo , Côte d’Ivoire , Gabon , Ghana , Kenya , Malawi , Nigeria , Republic of Congo , Rwanda , Senegal  , South Africa , Tanzania , Uganda , Zambia , Togo, Mali, the Republic of Benin, and Burkina Faso.

Interested developers can benefit from Yellow Card’s PFI offerings by engaging with the tbDEX protocol via TBD’s open source software developer kits (SDKs).

"It's a true honor to be chosen by TBD as the first PFI for tbDEX. These collaborations, especially of this caliber, serve as a compelling testament to the dedication and hard work of the Yellow Card team—especially our compliance, treasury, and commercial teams—but also to our collective vision with TBD for reshaping the landscape of cross-border payments across Africa and the world," said Chris Maurice, CEO and co-founder of Yellow Card.

tbDEX SDKs for Typescript and Kotlin / Java Now Available; Additional Platforms Coming in 2024 Today, TBD launched tbDEX’s first set of SDKs on Typescript and Kotlin / Java. These SDKs make it easy for participants to create and manage their identifiers, issue and accept VCs, negotiate bids and asks, and engage in the protocol.

These SDKs offer a range of functionality and include:

tbDEX SDK: used by participants to construct, verify, and validate tbDEX messages

DID SDK: used to create and resolve identifiers (DIDs) that represent institutions and participants

Credentials SDK: used to create and verify the verifiable credentials (VCs) that get sent back to applicants, and construct data structures needed to exchange VCs

Crypto SDK: contains the cryptographic foundation needed for DIDs, VCs, and tbDEX messages

Encoders SDK: contains encode and decode utility functions needed for DIDs, VCs, and tbDEX.

In 2024 TBD plans to release additional SDKs across platforms, including SWIFT and Android. To learn more and start developing with tbDEX SDKs, please visit developer.tbd.website.