What the Travel Rule Protocol is
The Travel Rule Protocol, TRP, is an open standard for exchanging the sender and recipient data that FATF Recommendation 16, the Travel Rule, asks for on crypto transfers. It is developed by the Travel Rule Protocol Working Group under the OpenVASP Association, a Swiss non-profit association, and its specification is published openly.
TRP works peer to peer: two providers exchange encrypted data directly, and no data or metadata passes through a third party. It builds on plain web standards, HTTPS and the IVMS 101 data model, and several Travel Rule providers implement it, which is why it is one of the Travel Rule connectors of our compliance reporting module.
What it does in your platform
Compliance reporting
Exchanges Travel Rule data with counterparties that speak TRP, directly from your platform, with no Travel Rule provider in between. Withdrawals above the threshold carry your customer's data to the receiving provider, and incoming data is checked before funds are credited.
How the connection works
The compliance reporting module runs a TRP endpoint for your platform and talks to other providers' endpoints over HTTPS, with both sides proving who they are with mutual TLS certificates.
The recipient's Travel Address
The receiving provider gives its customer a Travel Address instead of a bare blockchain address: an encoded link to that provider's TRP endpoint.
Your platform sends an inquiry
When your customer withdraws to that Travel Address, the module decodes it and posts an inquiry with the sender and recipient data in IVMS 101, the asset, the amount and a callback address.
The other side answers
The receiving provider checks its customer and answers on the callback: an approval with the blockchain address to pay, or a rejection with a reason.
The transfer goes on-chain
With the approval in hand, the withdrawal is sent, and the module confirms it to the receiving provider with the transaction ID.
Deposits work the other way
Inquiries for your customers arrive at your TRP endpoint, and the module checks them before it approves and before the funds are credited.
Everything is recorded
Each inquiry, answer and confirmation is kept with its transfer and shows up in the backoffice for your compliance team.
Next to other networks
TRP reaches the providers that implement it, directly or through their Travel Rule provider. Hosted services such as Notabene and self-hosted software such as 21 Analytics both support it, so a counterparty can be on TRP whichever provider it chose.
For counterparties on other networks, the module connects to Travel Rule providers such as Notabene and Sygna. The checks and the records stay the same whichever way a transfer travels.
When the Travel Rule Protocol fits best
A strong fit when
- Many of your counterparties already speak TRP, directly or through their Travel Rule provider.
- You want Travel Rule data to go straight to the counterparty, with no intermediary holding a copy.
- You prefer an open standard that no single company owns.
Also worth a look
- A Travel Rule provider such as Notabene, when your counterparties are spread across many networks.
- Self-hosted software such as 21 Analytics, which speaks TRP and the TRUST network from your own servers.
How we get you live
Your TRP endpoint
We run the TRP endpoint as part of your platform, under your domain, ready to send and receive inquiries.
Travel Addresses
We set up how your platform issues Travel Addresses for your customers' deposits, and how it reads the ones they withdraw to.
The certificates
The certificates that prove your platform's identity to other providers stay in your platform's secrets, and connections without a valid certificate are refused.
A full test run
Before go-live, inquiries, answers and confirmations run end to end against a test counterparty, with the working group's Travel Address and IVMS tools to check every message.
