# zCred Protocol

> Confidential compliance decisions for identity, creditworthiness & compliance in Web3, built on Horizen Vela and Base.

zCred turns private identity, credit, and compliance credentials into reusable, application-specific attestations for Base — without ever exposing the user's raw data or the verifier's proprietary policy logic. Selected for Horizen Accelerator.

## Quick Context for LLMs & AI Agents

- **Architecture**: 3-Phase pipeline: (1) Client-side zkTLS Ingress, (2) Horizen Vela AWS Nitro TEE WASM Policy Execution, (3) 1-Line EVM Settlement on Base.
- **Privacy Guarantees**: 0 Bytes PII retained. Sealed memory AES-128 execution. Domain-scoped cryptographic nullifiers prevent cross-dApp wallet tracking.
- **Settlement Latency**: <180ms enclave decision latency; <26,000 gas on-chain EVM query.
- **Grant & Ecosystem**: Selected for Horizen Accelerator (Horizen Labs & Base ecosystem).

## Canonical Documentation & Machine-Readable Context

- [APA 7th Edition Research Specification](https://zcred.xyz/apa-brief): Formal academic specification with complete abstract, methodology, and references.
- [Machine-Readable APA JSON Specification](https://zcred.xyz/zcred-apa-specification.json): Full structured JSON for autonomous agent ingestion pipelines.
- [Markdown APA Specification](https://zcred.xyz/zcred-apa-specification.md): Complete GitHub-flavored markdown whitepaper.
- [Agent API Endpoint](https://zcred.xyz/api/agent): Real-time agent endpoint returning APA technical metadata.
- [Full LLM Context (llms-full.txt)](https://zcred.xyz/llms-full.txt): Comprehensive multi-page prompt context for agents.

## Academic Citation (APA 7th Edition)

Singh, S., & zCred Cryptography Architecture Team. (2026). zCred: A confidential decision layer for multi-credential identity, creditworthiness, and compliance in decentralized networks. zCred Protocol Architecture Group. https://zcred.xyz/apa-brief