Aqua Protocol · Proposed open standard
An open protocol for data accountability.
Aqua specifies portable, tamper-evident records of provenance, signatures, and time. Verification rests on cryptographic proof rather than platform trust: anyone holding the data can check it independently.
This site supports the standardisation effort. It documents the protocol and collects the specification and related resources, all publicly available and free to use. Aqua is developed in the open and has not yet been adopted by a standards body.
Proposed standard · not yet ratified
What Aqua Protocol is
Proof, not platforms
Records are secured by hash chains and cryptographic signatures. Verification requires no blockchain and no central authority: anyone holding the data can check it independently.
Provenance that travels
Every revision links to the one before it, forming a portable, gapless history of origin and change. Integrity stays checkable wherever the data goes.
Open by design
An open standard with open-source implementations. Only hashes ever need to leave your hands, so the data itself stays private and under your control.
Specification and resources
Specification
The data structures, revision schema, and verification rules of version 4, the current published protocol.
docs / v4.0.0 / schema-referenceDocumentation
Introduction, concepts, and tooling reference for implementers of the current protocol.
docs / v4.0.0Whitepaper
The original whitepaper: motivation, design principles, and the data accounting model.
docs / v1.1.0 / whitepaperImprovement proposals
Protocol changes are proposed, discussed, and tracked in public as Aqua Improvement Proposals.
inblockio / aqua-improvement-proposalReference implementations
Open-source SDKs, verifiers, and tools that implement the protocol.
github.com / inblockioExamples
Example projects showing how the protocol is applied in practice.
inblockio / aqua-examplesv4.0.0 is the current published version of the protocol. Previous versions, including v3.0.2, remain available.
Participate
Aqua is developed in the open. Specification discussion, improvement proposals, and implementation work happen on GitHub; review and contributions are welcome.