# Syntactic Layer

**Focus**: Structure and format. Specifies how information should be structured. Blockchain agnostic, enables interoperability at the application level.

**Objective:** Standardize structured data representations. To define the structure, format, and rules for constructing valid data or messages exchanged between systems or blockchains. The role of the Syntactic Layer is to ensure that data and messages are packaged in a standardized manner, enabling seamless communication and data exchange across the crosschain ecosystem.

**Description:** Defines common specifications for formatting, serializing, and validating cross-chain data structures, messages, and documents. Provides schemas, encodings, and validation rules. It ensures that when one blockchain sends a message to another, the receiving blockchain can correctly deconstruct and understand the message based on its structure. standardizes the structure and encoding of data to remove friction in cross-chain integrations. It provides portability at the data representation level.

**Layer owner:** Standards bodies, protocol developers, open-source communities, organizations or consortiums that set technical standards for crosschain operations.



**Relevant standards:** &#x20;

* ISO 20022&#x20;



Some key aspects include:

* Schemas and message formats
* Data structure and object specifications
* Encoding and serialization standards
* Validation rules and conformance testing
* Syntax for APIs, protocols, file formats
* Aligning to regulatory reporting standards
* Supporting human-readable and machine-readable formats
* Enabling declarative configuration over code





**High level, wide ideas:**

* Standard schemas and formats for representing identities, participants, roles compliant with regulations. Enables validation of attributes for KYC, AML, accredited investor status etc.
* Structured formats with validation rules for regulated assets like securities, derivatives, loans etc. Allows conformance checking for cross-chain asset transfers.
* Common structures and encodings to communicate transactions, trades, business events, actions in a compliant way.
* Standard headers and meta-syntax for additional compliance metadata like purpose, jurisdiction, authorization etc.
* Schemas for disclosures, statements, reports that can interface with regulatory systems. Enables automated compliance reporting across chains.
* Syntax and vocabularies for regulations, rules, policies, constraints that is portable across chains.
* Formats should support both human readable and machine readable representations to serve user-facing and system-facing requirements.
* Compliant syntax for keys, addresses, identifiers, and indexing that aligns with regulatory identity schemes.
* Schemas should cover both domain-specific and domain-agnostic regulatory concepts.

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