OpenFiat is not a blockchain
It is a coordination layer that sits on top of one. Solana holds the money and executes escrow; OpenFiat carries everything a marketplace needs that has no business being on a chain — listings, reputation, messaging, discovery.
Two layers, each doing what it is good at
The split is the whole design. Decentralize what benefits from it, and leave the rest where it works better.
Solana
Settlement layer
Audited on-chain programs hold the assets. Custody does not depend on OpenFiat being online, reachable, or even still maintained.
Asset custody · Escrow execution · Staking · Treasury · Governance execution
OpenFiat
Coordination layer
An open peer-to-peer network carries the marketplace. Anyone can run a piece of it, and no single operator can take it down.
Advertisement discovery · Trade coordination · Reputation · Encrypted messaging · Service discovery · Notifications · Session recovery
The reasoning behind it
Chapter 3 sets out twelve principles the whole protocol is derived from. These six do the most work.
Verify control, not identity
Instead of determining who someone is, OpenFiat verifies what they control. It establishes no nationality, citizenship or legal status, and requires no KYC.
Protocol, not platform
No company owns email. Thousands of independent providers implement a common standard. OpenFiat is built the same way.
Reputation is earned
A newly verified user has less observable history than an anonymous merchant who has completed thousands of trades over years.
Decentralize only what benefits from it
Escrow benefits from on-chain execution. Advertisement listings do not. The test is whether decentralizing improves security, resilience, transparency or ownership.
Not another blockchain
OpenFiat introduces no competing consensus algorithm. Rather than replacing existing chains, it extends them.
Designed to outlive its creators
AllenHark leads initial development and is designed to become unnecessary. No single participant should be indispensable.
A numbered specification suite
28 formal specifications, grouped into layers. The number tells you which layer a document belongs to.
- OFS-0xxxCoreOpenFiat Protocol Suite1
- OFS-1xxxNetworkOpenFiat Network Protocol (OFNP) · Peer Discovery Protocol (PDP) · OpenFiat Gossip Protocol (OGP) · Snapshot Synchronization Protocol (SSP) · Session Synchronization Protocol (SSP) · Service Registry Protocol (SRP) · Node Reputation & Stake-Weighted QoS (SWQoS) · OpenFiat Node Synchronization Protocol (ONSP) · OpenFiat Network Security Protocol (ONSP) · OpenFiat Persistent State Storage Specification (PSSS)10
- OFS-2xxxMarketplaceOpenFiat Trade Protocol (OFTP) · OpenFiat Advertisement Protocol (OAP) · OpenFiat Reservation Protocol (ORP) · OpenFiat Settlement Protocol (OSP) · OpenFiat Dispute Protocol (ODP)5
- OFS-3xxxReputationOpenFiat Reputation Engine (ORE)1
- OFS-4xxxGovernanceOpenFiat Governance Protocol (OGP) · OpenFiat Tokenomics Specification (OTS) · OpenFiat Onchain Program Architecture (OPA) · OpenFiat Chain Bridge Protocol (OCBP)4
- OFS-5xxxIdentityOpenFiat Identity Claims Protocol (OICP)1
- OFS-6xxxNotificationsOpenFiat Notification Protocol (ONP)1
- OFS-7xxxOracle & RiskOpenFiat Oracle Protocol (OOP) · OpenFiat Risk Intelligence Protocol (ORIP)2
- OFS-8xxxExtensionsOpenFiat Error Code Registry (OECR) · OpenFiat Event Type Registry (OETR) · OpenFiat Node API (ONA)3
Your money, your currency, no middleman.
Start with a five-minute overview, or read the whole thing.