Protocol Overview

The TaaS protocol defines how real-world data is fetched, attested, and delivered to on-chain consumers with a verifiable chain of custody. The protocol is built on two foundations: a cryptographic identity model that answers "who signed this", and a structured data format — the TruthPoint — that answers "what was signed and when".

---

The Core Problem

Blockchains are deterministic environments that cannot reach the outside world. Every piece of real-world data — a token price, a sports result, an economic indicator — must be explicitly bridged into the on-chain environment by a trusted party.

TaaS replaces trust in a party with verifiable proof. Every value attested by the network is:

1. Fetched from one or more authoritative external APIs by a registered plugin.
2. Validated against a declared output schema by the UCM Truth Engine.
3. Aggregated across multiple independent sources using a configurable strategy.
4. Cryptographically signed — bound to the exact value, source list, and timestamp — producing a TruthPoint.
5. Verifiable on-chain against the TruthOracleV3 registry without access to the original data.

---

Cryptographic Identity

The gateway uses two cryptographic identities per node that serve different roles:

Identity	Key Type	Role
Ethereum Identity	secp256k1 (EIP-712)	On-chain registration, gas payment, and signing in Sovereign (LOCAL) mode. Always the gatewayIdentity field in a TruthPoint.
BLS Identity	BLS12-381	Partial signature production and aggregation in Mesh (TSS) mode. Expressed via the tssPublicKey field when present.

In LOCAL mode, the Ethereum key is sufficient. The data value, timestamp, and source list are hashed and signed using EIP-712 structured data. Any EVM chain can verify this signature against the node's registered Ethereum address.

In TSS mode, a BLS12-381 aggregate signature is produced by threshold consensus across multiple nodes. Both the EIP-712 signature (from the proposing node's Ethereum key) and the BLS aggregate (from the threshold group) must be present and valid.

---

Signing Modes

Mode	Trigger	Signature Type	Finality
LOCAL	P2P disabled, or request completed before TSS timeout	EIP-712 (secp256k1)	PRELIMINARY or OFFICIAL
TSS	P2P enabled and threshold met within sign_timeout_secs	BLS12-381 aggregate + EIP-712	OFFICIAL

---

Finality States

Every TruthPoint carries a finality field that communicates how much trust a consumer should place in the value:

State	Meaning
PRELIMINARY	Signed by the local node within the sign timeout. No threshold consensus. Suitable for low-stakes reads; not recommended for high-value settlement.
OFFICIAL	Threshold of nodes agreed on this value and BLS aggregation succeeded, or LOCAL mode with full source quorum met.
DISPUTED	The local node's value diverged from the swarm majority. Do not settle on a disputed TruthPoint.