tap-primary-sources-2026-05-02

Transaction Authorization Protocol (TAP) primary sources — 2026-05-02

Project status in this pass

• TAP has a distinct public protocol site (tap.rsvp), a public TAIPs site (taips.tap.rsvp), and a dedicated GitHub organization (TransactionAuthorizationProtocol).
• A TAP white paper is linked from Notabene’s TAP page and the TAIPs repo, but the linked HubSpot-hosted document did not yield a clean readable extraction in this pass.
• The clearest current source of truth was the protocol homepage, the TAIPs docs and repo, the GitHub organization, and the tap-rs implementation repo.

Primary-source snapshots

1) Protocol homepage

• URL: https://tap.rsvp/
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Describes TAP as a protocol for “safe and compliant real-world transactions on any public blockchain.”
  • Calls it a private decentralized payment-messaging protocol for VASPs, financial institutions, DeFi, and self-hosted wallets.
  • Emphasizes authorizing transactions with confidence before settlement rather than changing the underlying blockchain rail.
  • Frames the protocol as “fully open and public domain.”
• Why it mattered:
  • This is the cleanest first-party signal that TAP should be cataloged as authorization/messaging infrastructure above settlement rather than as a blockchain, wallet, or narrow compliance API.

2) TAIPs overview

• URL: https://taips.tap.rsvp/overview/
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Defines TAP as a messaging framework for secure, compliant, flexible transaction authorization before settlement on a blockchain.
  • Explicitly separates the authorization layer from the blockchain settlement layer.
  • Explains the core motivation: unilateral sender authorization, irreversibility, limited beneficiary input, and compliance gaps in ordinary blockchain transfers.
  • Lists core message types including Transfer, Authorize, Settle, Reject, Cancel, and Revert.
  • Describes additional payment-request and agent-connection flows for merchant/invoicing and delegated-agent use cases.
• Why it mattered:
  • This page is the strongest compact explanation of TAP’s architecture and why it is more than a Travel Rule add-on.

3) TAIPs parties documentation

• URL: https://taips.tap.rsvp/parties/
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Defines parties as legal entities involved in blockchain transactions and says they are foundational to TAP’s compliance model.
  • Uses DIDs, verifiable credentials, and relationship proofs to identify parties and connect them to agents.
  • Supports roles such as originator, beneficiary, customer, merchant, and intermediary parties.
  • Includes attributes like LEI, MCC, contact information, branding, and regulatory status.
• Why it mattered:
  • This is the clearest first-party evidence that TAP is modeling real-world legal and compliance relationships, not only message transport.

4) TAIPs GitHub repo

• URL: https://github.com/TransactionAuthorizationProtocol/TAIPs
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Describes TAIPs as the standards process for the Transaction Authorization Protocol.
  • Shows accepted proposal areas spanning messaging, transfers, protocol core, agents, parties, policies, selective disclosure, relationship proofs, IVMS101, payment requests, invoices, escrow, asset exchange, ISO 20022 mapping, and memo-hash-based transfer correlation.
  • Publishes JSON schemas at https://taips.tap.rsvp/schemas/ and points to official TypeScript types.
  • Notes licensing under CC BY-SA 4.0 and explicitly ties the protocol surface to a public standards process.
• Why it mattered:
  • The repo shows TAP is already a fairly broad standards surface, not merely a marketing concept around one payment flow.

5) TAP GitHub organization

• URL: https://github.com/TransactionAuthorizationProtocol
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • The org description says TAP is “a decentralized protocol allowing multiple participants in real-world transactions to identify each other and collaborate with the goal of authorizing them.”
  • Public repos include TAIPs, tap-rs, tap-ts, tap-go, ivms101, website, and related support repos.
• Why it mattered:
  • The org structure reinforces that TAP has become a protocol-and-tooling ecosystem rather than only a single vendor’s product page.

6) tap-rs implementation repo

• URL: https://github.com/TransactionAuthorizationProtocol/tap-rs
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Describes tap-rs as a Rust implementation of TAP for secure authorization of blockchain transactions before submission on-chain.
  • Says the implementation targets payment use cases, Travel Rule compliance, and secure transaction coordination.
  • Lists workspace crates for message processing, agent identity, CAIP identifiers, IVMS101, node orchestration, HTTP DIDComm, CLI operations, WASM, TypeScript SDK, and MCP integration.
  • States that the codebase has implemented all core TAP message types and flows and is feature-complete for standard TAP use cases.
• Why it mattered:
  • This is the best first-party evidence that TAP is not just a spec effort; it already has developer-operational surface area across CLI, server, browser, and AI-agent environments.

7) Notabene TAP explainer

• URL: https://notabene.id/tap
• Key excerpts/signals:
  • Says TAP is a public protocol for authorizing blockchain payments before settlement and is designed for any wallet, exchange, or protocol.
  • Explains the protocol using parties, agents, policies, and DIDComm messaging.
  • Positions the protocol for B2B payments, e-commerce merchants, DeFi protocols, exchanges, custodians, fintechs, banks, and regulators.
  • Says governance happens through community proposals rather than any one company or vendor.
• Why it mattered:
  • This page helps distinguish TAP-the-protocol from Notabene-the-company while still showing how a major commercial steward is framing the protocol in practice.

Whitepaper status

• A TAP white paper link is publicly exposed from first-party materials.
• The linked document resolved to a HubSpot-hosted public document endpoint, but lightweight retrieval returned mostly wrapper HTML rather than readable paper text in this pass.
• Because of that, I did not treat the white paper as fully recovered here.
• The protocol homepage, TAIPs docs, TAIPs repo, and implementation repos were clearer current primary sources than the white-paper endpoint.

Working conclusion

TAP is best cataloged as pre-settlement transaction-authorization and trust-layer infrastructure for blockchain payments. The decisive clue is the repeated first-party separation between an authorization/messaging layer and the eventual settlement layer, paired with real standards work around parties, policies, compliance payloads, payment requests, delegated agents, and reference implementations across SDK, CLI, server, and MCP surfaces.