The Open Transaction Layer, known as OTL, launched on May 28, 2026 as an open industry initiative. Fireblocks founded the protocol stack alongside more than 30 financial and infrastructure partners. Notably, six blockchain foundations joined as founding members through the Blockchain Payments Consortium. Those foundations include Solana, Stellar, Polygon, TON, Sui, and Monad, with Mysten Labs supporting Sui. Together, they back OTL as the missing coordination standard for onchain finance.
Six blockchain foundations are joining the Open Transaction Layer as founding partners: @Solana, @StellarOrg, @0xPolygon, @ton_blockchain, @SuiNetwork, and @Monad.
— Blockchain Payments Consortium (@bpconsortium) May 28, 2026
OTL is chain-agnostic by design. The coordination layer for compliant onchain finance works across all of them.
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What the Open Transaction Layer Actually Is
OTL is an open, chain-agnostic protocol stack for coordinating onchain transactions between any counterparties. Specifically, it standardizes identity, messaging, compliance, and settlement coordination across blockchains. The protocol does not move value itself. Instead, it sits above the rails that do, providing shared rules for how institutions, wallets, and AI agents interact. Fireblocks compares the design to TCP/IP, where DNS, SSL, and HTTP enabled the internet to scale. As a result, OTL aims to play that same coordination role for digital asset finance. The full specifications are now available under an open-source license at otl.network.
Announcing the Open Transaction Layer. An open protocol stack for coordinating onchain transactions between any counterparty – compliantly and securely.
— Fireblocks (@FireblocksHQ) May 28, 2026
Founded with @Checkout @CrossRiverBank @SoFi @RobinhoodApp @privy_io + @Stablecoin @eToro @MoonPay @MetaMask @WalletConnect… pic.twitter.com/JtFrcWkDda
Why Coordination Is the Missing Layer
Regulated institutions today build bespoke connections to coordinate every onchain transaction. Consequently, the industry has produced what Fireblocks calls “integration sprawl and parallel systems that don’t reconcile.” Each firm must independently verify counterparties, align on transfer parameters, and exchange compliance data before settlement. Meanwhile, payment requests often lack end-to-end authentication, which creates real security and reconciliation risks. OTL addresses this by defining shared protocols that any participant can implement once. Therefore, institutions can reach more counterparties without building one-off integrations for each. As Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov put it, “a closed network can’t solve a coordination problem that spans every participant in digital asset finance.”
The Role of the Six Founding Blockchain Foundations
The six blockchain foundations joined OTL through the Blockchain Payments Consortium, which Fireblocks initiated in December 2025. Each chain represents a distinct slice of the onchain economy, which strengthens the chain-agnostic claim. Solana brings high-throughput payments and consumer applications. In addition, Stellar contributes deep experience in regulated cross-border payments and remittances. Polygon represents EVM-based scaling and enterprise tokenization use cases. Meanwhile, TON anchors consumer-scale wallets through its Telegram integration. Sui adds a modern object-centric programming model, while Monad represents next-generation high-performance EVM execution. Together, these chains help prove that OTL works across very different architectures, not just one ecosystem.
The Technical Architecture Behind OTL
OTL organizes its specifications into five layers. The four base layers cover identity, session, transport, and messaging. Above them, the application layer defines concrete workflows for real institutional use cases. Furthermore, the protocol composes existing standards rather than replacing them, including W3C DIDs, IVMS101, ISO 20022, and CAIP-19. The first applications target practical pain points in onchain finance. For example, Universal Deposit handles authenticated payment coordination between counterparties. In addition, Wallet Attribution provides a decentralized way to verify which entity controls a given address. Both directly support Travel Rule compliance and reduce risk in institutional settlement flows.
What Compliant Onchain Finance Coordination Means in Practice
OTL treats CeFi platforms, DeFi protocols, non-custodial wallets, and AI agents as first-class participants. As a result, the same identity and compliance primitives apply across every type of counterparty. Institutions can confirm who they are transacting with before any value moves. Additionally, they can attach standardized compliance data without bilateral negotiations for each new partner. The protocol also extends to AI-driven financial agents, which need verifiable identity to operate safely at scale. Idan Ofrat, Chief Product Officer at Fireblocks, framed the design clearly: “A standard like this isn’t something any single vendor can ship.” Therefore, the alliance model becomes essential, since shared standards only work when the industry builds them together.
What Comes Next for OTL
OTL’s full alliance spans more than 30 founding institutions across every layer of the digital asset stack. Trading firms like B2C2, FalconX, and Wintermute joined alongside payment providers including Checkout.com, MoonPay, and Triple-A. Additionally, Cross River Bank, SoFi, Coins.ph, and Tazapay represent the banking and fintech tier. Consumer platforms Robinhood and eToro signed on, as did wallet leaders MetaMask, WalletConnect, and Zengo. Securitize and zerohash bring tokenization and infrastructure perspectives. Reference implementations will roll out progressively as the standards mature. Moreover, the alliance remains open to new members, signaling that OTL intends to grow into the default coordination layer for compliant onchain finance across every chain it touches.
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