Infrastructure Trust Boundary

Glossary of the Settlement Integrity Institute · v1.0 · Group II — Operations

Definition

The defined perimeter within which a Trust Fabric has been examined and is held to operate as a single integrated settlement system. Inside the boundary, the components, bindings, and conditions of operation are known and have been tested. Outside the boundary, no determination has been made and no reliance is warranted.

Notes

A boundary is what makes a Trust Fabric assessable. Without one, the question is this infrastructure trustworthy? has no defensible answer, because the scope of this is unspecified. The boundary names what was examined, what was not, and where the determination ceases to apply.

Boundaries are drawn along three axes — components (which issuers, custodians, validators, oracles, redemption pathways are within scope), jurisdictions (which legal regimes' rules govern the assessment), and operating conditions (the value, volume, and stress envelopes under which the determination holds). A change to any axis — a new sub-custodian, a new chain, a stress condition outside the tested envelope — is a change to the boundary, and may require recertification before the determination continues to apply.

See also

Trust Fabric · Operational Suitability · Recertification Cycle · Chain-Level Dependency

References

  1. ↩ Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Interpretive Letter 1183: Letter Addressing Certain Crypto-Asset Activities (March 7, 2025). occ.gov
  2. ↩ Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, FDIC, and OCC, Interagency Guidance on Third-Party Relationships: Risk Management (June 6, 2023). federalreserve.gov