Protect & CapitalExplorerTDXUser & Technical Guides

Glossary

In order to use properly Taurus-PROTECT or Taurus-CAPITAL and take advantage of all product capabilities, it is important to understand the main building blocks that underpin our products and how to interact with them. Further details are available in the user guides (protected access).

Taurus-PROTECT

Taurus implements hierarchical deterministic wallet structure, concretely our engineering team has implemented BIP32 (see Figure below), BIP44 standards.

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Figure 1: Hierarchical deterministic wallet

Wallet

A wallet is a group of addresses. It corresponds to depth = 3 in BIP 32 standard. Taurus-PROTECT allow clients to create up to 231 wallets.

Properties

  • There are 2 flavors of wallets:
    • single owner wallets: all addresses within the wallet belong to the same owner and inherit the same Client ID. This property enables an advanced feature (called AUTO mode) of Taurus-PROTECT which allows to create requests with funds coming from multiples addresses of the wallet.
    • multiple owners wallets: each address within the wallet belongs to a different owner.
  • A wallet can be tagged

Address

An address represents a blockchain address, whose private key is secured by Taurus-PROTECT. An address always corresponds to one wallet. It corresponds to depth = 5 in BIP 32 standard. Taurus-PROTECT clients can create up to 231 addresses per wallet.

Properties

  • an address belongs to a single wallet
  • the blockchain address is signed by the HSM
  • an address can be tagged
  • sometimes also referred as deposit address or internal address

Example

3J5ZgXpkCffMoDi1snLMw9bY5GCUxyN8nw

Whitelisted address

A whitelisted address is a blockchain address external to Taurus-PROTECT, that is, whose private key is not generated nor secured by Taurus-PROTECT. It is typically an external address to which users would like to send funds to. Whitelisted addresses can be those of counterparties, clients external addresses etc.

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Whitelisted addresses

Any asset that leaves Taurus-PROTECT must be towards a whitelisted address. That is, no external transaction is allowed towards non-whitelisted addresses.

Properties

  • a whitelisted address must be approved and signed by selected users, before being useable. Said workflow must be defined in Governance rules
  • sometimes also referred as external address

Whitelisted contract

A whitelisted contract is a contract address that represents a smart contract. Supported contracts cover both Ethereum and Tezos blockchains :

  • Ethereum: ERC-20 and any ERC smart contracts (incl. NFTs)
  • Tezos: FA1.2 and FA2 smart contracts (incl. NFTs)

Properties

  • a whitelisted contract must be approved and signed by selected users, before being useable. Said workflow must be defined in Governance rules

Request

A request represents a business action that might be subject to the approval of other users. Typical actions are:

  • transfer funds from a blockchain address to another blockchain address
  • transfer funds from a wallet (i.e., containing multiple addresses belonging to the same owner) to a blockchain address
  • withdraw funds from an exchange to an internal blockchain address
  • interact with a smart contract
  • ...

Properties

  • a request is usually verified and approved (signed) by one or more approvers whose workflow must be defined in Governance rules
  • a request can result in multiple blockchain transactions

Transaction

A transaction represents a blockchain transaction, as observed on the blockchain network.

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Request or Transaction ?

request and transaction are 2 different concepts, although usually linked. A request to transfer funds can result in several blockchain transactions. For example, let us imagine that we have 2 ETH addresses a1 (balance: 5 ETH) and a2 (balance: 3 ETH) in a wallet w owned by the same owner.
A request to transfer 6 ETH from the wallet w to the address d will result in 2 blockchain transactions:

  1. a transfer of 5 ETH from a1 to d
  2. a transfer of 1 ETH from a2 to d

Action

  • An Action relies on an engine that allows users to automate selected actions such as filling addresses or forwarding assets
  • Actions are created by users with Administrator role
  • For more details, refer to user guides (password protected)

Business rule

  • A business rule allows to configure the system and set different rules regarding opening hours, requests, wallets, currencies, etc.
  • Business rules are created by users with Administrator role
  • For more details, refer to user guides (password protected)

Governance rule

  • A governance rule defines the rules for a request to be accepted by the HSM. A rule is usually composed of a source, a destination and an amount. The HSM verifies any requests against the set of enforced governance rules to decide if the request can be processed or not.
  • Governance rules are created by users with Super Administrator role
  • For more details, refer to user guides (password protected)

Exchange Account

An exchange account is an account held with a 3rd party such as Coinbase, Kraken, Binance etc. Taurus-PROTECT integrates with several exchanges to facilitate the viewing of your exchange account positions (fiat + crypto balances held outside of your custody solution) as well as initiate withdrawal requests via API to that exchange. API keys must be pre-configured in Taurus-PROTECT with the correct permissions in order to benefit from this feature.

Taurus-CAPITAL

Smart contract

A smart contract is a software code stored and executed on a blockchain or a Distributed Ledger Technology ("DLT") network, such as Ethereum or Tezos.

Each time a new version of the very same smart contract source code is deployed, we refer to it as an instance.

A contract template is the standard source code of a given smart contract that can be used to deploy several instances of the same smart contract.

Digital asset

A Digital Asset is a digital representation of a right, claim, asset property, security, financial instrument, currency or unit of account booked on a distributed ledger, such as a blockchain.

The primary types of digital assets are, as per the Swiss Financial Markets Supervisory Authority FINMA's classification:

  • Payment Tokens are generally synonymous with Cryptocurrencies, the sole or primary purpose and function of which is to serve as means of payment, so that Payment Tokens have no other material functions or links to development projects
  • Utility Tokens are Digital Assets that are intended to provide digital access to an application or service
  • Asset/investment Tokens represent assets such as participations in real physical underlyings, companies, or earnings streams, or an entitlement to dividends or interest payments. In terms of their economic function, Asset Tokens are analogous to equities, bonds, derivatives or other investment instruments.

Token

A Token is a Digital Asset with the following main characteristics:

  • It is booked on an existing distributer ledger (e.g., Ethereum, Tezos) - instead of launching a new one for each new token
  • It is modelled and implemented in the form of a smart contract.

A Token on Ethereum coexists with other tokens on the same blockchain, as well as its native crypto-currency (i.e. ethers for Ethereum)

Investor

Person or legal entity planning to hold, previously holding or currently holding Digital Assets.

Issuer

Person or legal entity issuing and offering Digital Assets to investors.

DeFi

Decentralized finance ("DeFi") offers financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks. Instead, it uses smart contracts on a blockchain. DeFi allow for example people to lend or borrow funds from others.