Introduction to peer-to-peer data transfer via Veriscope

Central to the Travel Rule is the requirement for originator & beneficiary data to travel with transfers so that both parties can conduct checks and decide whether they wish to proceed. Up until now it has been common for VASPs to pre-screen wallet addresses before broadcasting a withdrawal on-chain. The Travel Rule takes this one step further and requires VASPs to know a) the counterparty VASP and b) the user/customer at the end of a transfer before a transfer takes place.

Throught-out these docs, the data that needs to travel with a transfer is referred to as KYC/IVMS data. IVMS stands for InterVASP Messaging Standard and is the common standard that most Travel Rule Service Providers have adopted. Refer to InterVASP.org for a complete overview of the IVMS. IVMS validator is also a useful resouce.

Veriscope enables the tranfser of KYC/IVMS data via a secure peer-to-peer HTTPS channel established between VASPs that is independent of any central database/server and requires data to be encrypted before it is sent.

To enable this in a seamless yet secure manner at scale, Veriscope comes with three state machines and several webhook events. It is important these are understood before implementing a solution (i.e. Phase 3 in the implementation guide.)

Before explaining the state machines, the end-to-end flow is illustrated for context.