Public Reference Materials

The Institutional Privacy Task Force (IPTF) helps onboard institutions and enterprises onto Ethereum, with a focus on ensuring their privacy needs are met in a performant, secure, usable, and accessible way.

This folder contains public-facing documentation for IPTF, including technical patterns, use cases, regulatory frameworks, and vendor evaluations.

Structure

• Use Cases: Business problems and requirements for privacy-preserving financial applications
• Patterns: Reusable technical solution cards for common privacy architectures
• Approaches: Detailed solution approaches combining multiple patterns for specific use cases
• Jurisdictions: Regulatory frameworks and compliance guides by region/authority
• Domains: Technical domain overviews (payments, custody, trading, etc.)
• Vendors: Neutral documentation on vendor products and tooling

Evaluation Framework

This map evaluates solutions against CROPS — four properties the Ethereum Foundation considers non-negotiable: Censorship Resistance, Open Source and Free, Privacy, and Security.

Patterns and approaches distinguish between I2I (Institution-to-Institution) and I2U (Institution-to-End-User) contexts because CROPS requirements differ based on the power dynamic between counterparties. See GLOSSARY.md for full definitions.

Using This Documentation

For business stakeholders:

1. Start with Use Cases to understand business requirements and problems
2. Review Jurisdictions for regulatory considerations in your region
3. Explore Approaches for recommended solution architectures

For technical teams:

1. Browse Patterns for reusable technical building blocks
2. Check Approaches for detailed implementation guidance
3. Review Vendors for tooling and infrastructure options
4. Consult Domains for domain-specific technical considerations

For legal/compliance:

1. Review Jurisdictions for regulatory frameworks
2. Read Use Cases for compliance constraints
3. Check Approaches for regulatory disclosure mechanisms

Confidential Information

Business-sensitive details (specific organizations, pilot scopes, committed volumes, next steps) are maintained separately in the context/ folder with corresponding context files linked from use cases.

Contributing

When adding new content:

• Use the templates provided in each folder
• Keep content concise and actionable
• Cross-reference related patterns, approaches, and use cases
• Ensure no confidential business information is included

Development

Content Validation

This repo includes automated checks to ensure content quality:

# Install dependencies
npm install && cd scripts && npm install && cd ..

# Run all validations
npm run validate        # Frontmatter schemas, required sections, word limits
npm run check-terms     # GLOSSARY.md term consistency
npm run lint:vale       # Prose quality (requires: brew install vale)

# On-demand LLM review (requires API key)
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-... npm run llm-review patterns/pattern-foo.md

Pre-commit hooks run automatically via Husky on git commit.

CI runs: validate, check-terms, Vale prose linting on every push.

Copyright

Copyright and related rights waived via CC0.