Institutional Bilateral Demo

Tiered attestations, one-click ERC-8004 publication, multi-rail settlement. Agent identity infrastructure for institutional counterparties.

Scenario

Two institutional counterparties operate agents against a custodied flow. Fund A (credit-focused hedge fund) operates a treasury agent. Lender B (DeFi lending protocol) operates a counterparty agent.

The transaction: $1.2M USDC margin top-up to maintain LTV after a price move. Settlement on x402 / USDC on Base.

Fund A's agent holds a Tier 2 credential. Lender B requires Tier 3 for transactions at or above $1M. The smart contract on the receiving end is Immunefi-audited for code safety. The rejection happens at the agent principal layer - the gap OP/AT addresses.

Beat 1 Discovery and Handshake
Fund A: did:web:observerprotocol.org:agents:372c7bd2... Tier 2 Lender B: did:web:observerprotocol.org:agents:74836704... Tier 3 DIDs resolved. Org-level attestations on file. Tier mismatch visible.

Two institutional agents discover each other and exchange verifiable credentials. The protocol is symmetric - no privileged side. Same handshake whether the rail is Lightning, x402, or TRON.

Beat 2 Eager Chain Verification - Tier Mismatch
[Lender B verifies Fund A against ERC-8004 registry on Base] Fund A attestation tier: Tier 2 (Enterprise-Attested) Required for >= $1,000,000: Tier 3 (Chain-Anchored) ERC-8004 on-chain anchor: NOT FOUND MISMATCH: Tier 2 received, Tier 3 required

Lender B doesn't just trust what Fund A says. It checks the on-chain trust registry. Tier 2 is meaningful - an enterprise admin signed it. But for institutional settlement above threshold, independent verifiability is the bar.

Beat 3 Policy-Layer Rejection

Refusal at the policy layer, not the trust score. The smart contract is Immunefi-audited and would execute cleanly - but Lender B's agent never lets the request reach it. The gap: Immunefi protects the contract. OP/AT protects the agent principal.

Verdict: REJECTED (AIP v0.5.1) Violation 1: ATTESTATION_TIER_INSUFFICIENT Tier 2 received; Tier 3 required for >= $1,000,000 Violation 2: DELEGATION_CREDENTIAL_ABSENT No Tier 3 delegation credential presented for this scope Remediation: Request Tier 3 Delegation Credential Chain-anchored attestation is independently verifiable against ERC-8004
Terminal output of an AIP structured refusal showing two violations and a remediation hint, from the original v0.5.1 run
Terminal output from the original run, recorded under AIP v0.5.1. It shows the superseded refusal reason, a numeric threshold this page no longer uses. The transcript above reflects the current model: a refusal on absent authority.
Beat 4 Autonomous Remediation
[Fund A's agent parses AIP refusal payload] Missing: chain-anchored attestation Missing: Tier 3 delegation credential for margin-topup Path: request_delegation_credential [Auto-submits Delegation Credential request] Tier: Tier 3 (Enterprise + Chain-Anchored) Scope: margin-topup, collateral-release Rails: x402-usdc-base, lightning, tron:trc20 Expiry: 30 days >> Request appears in Fund A's CIO console. No human in the loop until now.

Fund A's agent reads the structured refusal, figures out what's missing, and asks for the upgrade autonomously. AIP gives both sides a shared schema for refusal and remediation. You don't teach agents new tricks - you express new policies.

Beat 5 Human Approval - CIO Selects Tier 3
AT Enterprise Dashboard - Delegation Request Wizard Step 2 of 5: Attestation Tier [ ] Tier 1: Self-Attested (Sovereign only) [ ] Tier 2: Enterprise-Attested [*] Tier 3: Enterprise + Chain-Anchored <-- SELECTED Scope: margin-topup, collateral-release Rails: x402-usdc-base, lightning, tron:trc20 Approved with hardware key signature.
AT Enterprise Dashboard - Attestation Tier selector with Tier 3 selected
Live AT dashboard - Delegation Request wizard, step 2

The human-in-the-loop event. The tier picker maps onto escalating approval surfaces a custodian already runs - retail, enterprise, regulated-counterparty. Three seconds to understand. No new vocabulary.

Beat 6 One-Click ERC-8004 Publication
Delegation Requested: Agent: Fund A Treasury Agent Tier: Tier 3: Enterprise + Chain-Anchored Scope: margin-topup, collateral-release Rails: x402-usdc-base, lightning, tron:trc20 Expires: 30 days [Publish to ERC-8004 Registry] -> Registration file pinned Token URI: https://api.observerprotocol.org/agents/.../registration.json SHA-256: 11da2df5cb1218d98f792b4a69a77ffd... [Mint 8004 NFT on Base] -> TX confirmed
Delegation Issued - Tier 3, multi-rail, 30 days
Credential issued - publish to 8004
Registration file pinned with Token URI and SHA-256 hash
Registration pinned - mint NFT on Base

One click moves Fund A from Tier 2 to Tier 3. Independent verifiability is no longer a claim - the audience is looking at the SHA-256 hash and the Base transaction. And the Rails field: x402, Lightning, TRON. Same credential, three rails, no new issuance.

Beat 7 Retry and Settlement on x402 / USDC
[Lender B independent verification against ERC-8004] Chain-anchored Tier 3 attestation: PASS Transaction within scope: PASS x402-usdc-base in Rails: PASS >> ALL CHECKS PASS // This sequence carried four checks until 8 August 2026. The // fourth was an AT-ARS score threshold. It was removed rather than // replaced: substituting a different check in the same slot would // preserve the shape of the demo at the cost of its argument. Settlement: $1,200,000 USDC on x402 / Base TX: 0xa7c3f9b2e1d4... Authorization-proof references: Delegation Token URI + 8004 anchor TX + CIO approval

Lender B verifies independently against 8004 - OP/AT is not in this verification path. Same architecture settles on Lightning or TRON if the counterparty prefers. The authorization proof is the dispute regime.

Beat 8 Audit Trail in Both Dashboards
FUND A's VIEW LENDER B's VIEW ------------------------------ ------------------------------ 1. Refusal received 1. Refusal issued (policy) 2. Auto-remediation sent 2. Remediation hint sent 3. Tier 3 credential issued 3. Token URI resolved (8004) 4. ERC-8004 publication tx 4. Content hash verified 5. CIO hardware-key approval 5. Settlement approved 6. Settlement on x402/USDC 6. Signed authorization proof issued Both views independently verifiable against the on-chain registry.

Every party has the full trail. Fund A's compliance team. Lender B's compliance team. The custodian's compliance team. A regulator with no relationship to either party can resolve the Token URI against 8004 and reconstruct exactly what happened.

How this maps to an institutional custodian

ALREADY LIVE

  • Three-tier attestation model in AT dashboard
  • Delegation request wizard (5 steps)
  • Multi-rail delegation credentials
  • AIP refusal and remediation grammar
  • Delegation scope enforced before signing
  • x402, Lightning, TRON settlement
  • @observer-protocol/policy-engine and the per-rail adapters on npm. The older @observer-protocol/sdk and PyPI observer-protocol packages are deprecated on the registry and unmaintained since April 2026 — they still install, but do not start an integration on them.

CO-DESIGN WITH PARTNER

  • One-click ERC-8004 publication + NFT mint
  • Institutional counterparty profile and policy primitives
  • Wizard integration with partner's CIO console
  • Counterparty agent harness
  • Credential schema extensions for institutional scope

Build estimate: 2-3 weeks from design partner kickoff. The protocol primitives, tier system, chain-anchoring path, and multi-rail credentials are all in production today.