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corda / corda-settler

Corda Off-ledger settlement for all the things
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Corda settler

Background

Obligations which are represented on a Corda ledger can be settled individually, in whole or in part, with Corda Settler. Example: Alice incurs an obligation to pay Bob an amount of USD at some point in the future. Alice should only be able to mark the obligation as paid if she can prove that the required amount payment was made to Bob via the specified method

This repository contains an implementation of the Corda Settler with a plugin to handle off-ledger settlement in other non-Corda payment systems.

Usage

Ensure you have Maven and Android Platform/API level 10 (2.3.3 APIs) installed.

Clone and locally install the Ripple Java Library:

git clone https://github.com/ripple-unmaintained/ripple-lib-java
cd ripple-lib-java
mvn install

Clone the Corda Settler repository and deploy locally:

git clone http://github.com/corda/corda-settler
cd corda-settler
./gradlew clean deployNodes

Note: In the OffLedgerSettleObligation flow, XRP will be sent from the account specified in the xrp.conf file located in cordapp/src/main/resources. You will need to rerun the deploy command when you change this information.

Run the nodes:

cd build/nodes
./runnodes

You should see four nodes open in your terminal.

Start with Party A and paste the following command to create a new obligation:

start CreateObligation amount: { quantity: 1000, token: { currencyCode: USD, type: fiat } }, role: OBLIGOR, counterparty: PartyB, dueBy: 1543922400, anonymous: false

If the flow fails due to ☠ Due by date must be in the future. then increase the value of the timestamp to a date in the future!

The node shell will output the result of the flow which should print the details of the new obligation that looks something like this:

OUTPUT:     Obligation(d6f9bb92-c903-4c54-9121-97a2b3afb1b2): PartyA owes PartyB 10.00 USD (0.00 USD paid).
            Settlement status: UNSETTLED
            SettlementMethod: No settlement method added
            Payments:
                No payments made.
COMMAND:    com.r3.corda.finance.obligation.commands.ObligationCommands.Create with pubkeys DL4AeA53y7qHJDEQrEJYiEsycihxhz1uNEoc5jEFvuyAt9, DLDnLmKJ5kfJm2qNv3NpbD8QD9dcZGNm2YXXXvptrLmcdg
ATTACHMENT: BE850C17C89B5B55B1962AEC78947404A36EC05FD8FA1AE52207EEB052F8B977

From the output, copy the UUID for the obligation which was output on the first line OUTPUT: Obligation(UUID).

Next, from the Party A node, novate the obligation face value token to XRP:

start NovateObligation linearId: PASTE_UUID, novationCommand: { oldToken: { currencyCode: USD, type: fiat }, newToken: { currencyCode: XRP, type: digital }, oracle: Oracle, type: token }

Next, from the Party B node, we need to add the settlement instructions.

Using XRP as the settlement rail

You will need to use an XRP address of an XRP account which you control. If you don't have an XRP account then you can get one from the testnet Faucet: https://developers.ripple.com/xrp-test-net-faucet.html. This account should be different to the one that the XRP is being sent from, defined in xrp.conf.

start UpdateSettlementMethod linearId: PASTE_UUID, settlementMethod: { accountToPay: PASTE_ACCOUNT, settlementOracle: Oracle, _type: com.r3.corda.finance.ripple.types.XrpSettlement }

Lastly, we want to settle the obligation with a payment of XRP. We can do this with the following command:

start OffLedgerSettleObligation amount: { quantity: 20000000, token: { currencyCode: XRP, type: digital } }, linearId: PASTE_UUID

You should see that the obligation is now settled. You can inspect the XRP ledger using the payment reference for the payment which is noted in the output for this command. Although there is support for a real exchange rate Oracle in this repository, the demo uses a fixed exchange rate of XRP/USD 0.50.

Repo structure

There are five modules in this repo:

  1. cordapp-states-contracts which contains the Obligation state and ObligationContract, as well as some abstract flows definitions and types for obligation payments and settlement methods. IMPORTANT: This module does not depend on the Ripple module. This module makes no assumption about the nature of the settlement rail.
  2. cordapp which contains the flows for issuing, cancelling, novating and selling obligations. The main flow of interest in this module is the MakeOffLedgerPayment flow which is abstract. The expectation is that CorDapp developers will sub-class this with their own flows for specific off-ledger payment methods. You'll see that the flow defines a bunch of abstract methods for checking balances, making payments and setting up the process. Currently there is one implementation of this flow in the ripple module.
  3. ripple which contains an implementation of the MakeOffLedgerPayment flow called MakeXrpPayment. MakeXrpPayment uses the ripple-lib-java library to create and sign XRP transactions. The remainder of this module defines the types, serialisers and client interface necessary for interacting with Ripple nodes. The interfaces are defined in the services package.
  4. swift which contains an implementation of the MakeOffLedgerPayment flow called MakeSWIFTPayment. MakeSWIFTPayment uses SWIFT http APIs to submit SWIFT payment instruction.
  5. oracle which contains an implementation of the XrpOracleService which checks whether an XRP payment specified by a transaction hash has credited a specific XRP account. There is also a stubbed-out exchange rate Oracle which is required for novating obligation face value token types.

Implementing your own settler

  1. Add a new module to this project with an outline similar to the ripple module.
  2. The settlement rail you intend to use probably already has a Java client API, so all you need to do is create a wrapper around this for Corda. Look at what I did with the Ripple library as an example. If you are sending library types over the wire, you'll need to create proxy serialisers for those types. The interface to your payment rail should exist as a CordaService.
  3. Sub-class MakeOffLedgerPayment for creating a payment using the payment rail of your choice. Note, that the payment must also be submitted to the payment rail. For Ripple and other cryptos this is easy as there are publicly available nodes. For legacy rails like RTGS and DFS you'll need access to an API for submitting transactions.
  4. Implement an Oracle service which will update and sign a transaction containing a payment against an Oracle service, if and only if the payment credited the specified beneficiaries account on the settlement rail. For cryptos you can query some nodes of your choosing to check whether the payment settled correctly. For RTGS and DFS, again, you'll need access to an API.
  5. Add a SettlementMethod type for your payment rail.
  6. Add a Payment type for your payment rail.

If you get stuck then e-mail roger [dot] willis [@] r3 [dot] com for help!

Payment rail operators wanting to integrate with the Corda Settler

At a high level you need the following:

  1. Provide an API for submitting payment instructions. The API should return the ID of the payment transaction. This probably already exists.
  2. Provide an API for checking the status of the payment. The API should only return "SUCCESS" if and only if the payment credits the specified beneficiaries account. This will likely need adding to your API.

E-mail roger [dot] willis [@] r3 [dot] com for more information.

Design

The obligation contract

As at 4/12/18.

This repo uses the obligation contract created for project Ubin with a couple of differences/additions. For example, there are new properties called settlementmethod and payments, both of an interface type.

Settlement can either be on-ledger or off-ledger. For on-ledger we can specify token states from which issuers are acceptable. Note, that this is not implemented in this project. See the obligation cordapp for how this is implemented. For off-ledger, there will be only one option for now: XRP settlement. Different implementations can be used for each method. The settler CorDapp is settlement rail agnostic! To add support for more rails just add a CorDapp that sub-classes the payment flow and adds settlement instructions for that settlement type.

The Corda contract which governs how the obligation functions, allows the obligation to be marked as fulfilled if an Oracle signs a Corda transaction attesting to the fact that a payment occurred on the Ripple ledger as specified by the settlement instructions in the obligation.

I'm sure this will not be the final design for obligation but it feels like a good approach for now just to get something done.

Step 1. Creating the obligation.

Alice and Bob record that Alice has incurred an obligation to pay Bob an amount of currency. The obligation accepts a token type that the financial obligation is in respect of. For now, this will just be a new DigitalCurrency type (set to "XRP") which emulates the java.util.Currency class. The obligation will also specify a payment deadline as an Instant.

Also, we must know if the settlement payment of XRP succeeded or failed within some bounded time, otherwise we expose ourselves to a "halting problem". As such, we will need to add the ledger number of the XRP ledger which we expect payment to be made by. This can be added after the payment instruction has been sent to a Ripple node.

In terms of settlement instructions for off-ledger XRP payments, we'll need:

Out of these items, only the Ripple address, UUID and Oracle need to be known before the payment is made. The others can be added subsequently to the payment being submitted to a Ripple node.

Of course, both Alice and Bob must agree on the size of the obligation and this may happen before the settlement instructions are added. I'll add a command to the obligation which allows the participants to add settlement instructions at any point after the obligation has been created.

The transaction creating the obligation (with settlement details) is then sent to a notary for ordering (it will include a timestamp) and then committed by both Alice and Bob to their node's local storage.

Step 2. Adding settlement instructions.

Bob will start a flow to add his Ripple address to the settlement instructions. He'll also add a UUID (which will be added to the Ripple transaction by Alice) that matches the UUID portion of the Linear ID. Bob will also specify which Oracle will be used. Alice is to agree on the Oracle.

At this point, both parties are in consensus that an XRP payment is owing, precisely how it should be made and what evidence the oracle will require from the Ripple ledger in order to be prepared to sign a statement that the payment has indeed been made.

Step 3. Making the XRP payment.

Alice creates a new Ripple payment transaction for the specified amount, to the specified account, with the specified UUID (in the memo field of the Ripple transaction).

Alice then signs the transaction and submits it to her rippled process or a process available elsewhere via RPC, web-sockets, whatever.

She receives the transaction hash for the newly submitted transaction. Assuming the transaction is properly formed, the node commits the transaction to its current version of the ledger and broadcasts the transaction to other nodes on the Ripple network.

At any point after the Ripple transaction was submitted to rippled, the transaction hash can be used to query the specified Oracle.

Assuming the new transaction is included in the calculated ledgers of a super-majority of nodes on the Ripple network, then the transaction will be included in a validated ledger instance.

At this point, the obligation is updated with the information for the XRP payment which has just been made. The following details are required:

The XRP payment is actually made via a Corda flow which calls out to a Ripple node. When Alice receives the transaction hash, she adds it to the Corda obligation along with a ledger number which the payment should be expected by. We do this because it is easier for the Oracle to query for a specific transaction hash rather than a list of transactions in a Ripple account. It also means that the obligee now knows that the payment instruction has been sent into the Ripple network.

Based on the Ripple developer docs. It should take only a couple of ledger numbers for a payment to be included in a validated ledger. We can experiment with numbers but for now I'll assert that the payment should succeed after 10 ledgers from when the payment was initially made.

Step 4. Extinguishing the obligation.

The obligation can be submitted to the Oracle at any point after the Ripple transaction hash has been added to obligation.

The Oracle will signer over an XRP payment which (partially) settles an obligation, if and only if:

The server_state of the rippled process used by the Oracle must be set to "tracking", "full", "validating", or "proposing".

Corda transaction proposals can be sent to the Oracle at any time for signing. The Oracle is configured to cache transaction proposals until the specified Ripple transaction is

a) included in a validated Ripple ledger instance, or; b) the last permissible Ripple ledger has been closed.

As such, if the the Ripple ledger_index exceeds the specified LastLedgerSequence then the Oracle will return an exception for the given transaction hash, indicating that the window for committing the transaction has passed.

At this point, a new settlement method can be added, if necessary. XRP payments might fail if they are paid to the wrong address or if the invoiceID is not set to the correct value. IF this is the case, then such issues must be resolved manually for now.

In practise, the Oracle would run a rippled process where the unique node list ("UNL") for the node would be published for participants on Corda Network to inspect. The Oracle's Corda node would interact with the rippled process via web-sockets or JSON-RPC. However, for the purposes of this PoC, the Oracle will use a publicly available Ripple node.

When the Oracle signs, as per the obligation contract code, the obligation can be extinguished. The Oracle sends back the signature over the transaction proposal. At this point, either Alice or Bob can send the obligation to the Notary for notarisation. NOTE: Alice and Bob do not need to sign.

Notes/Issues

TODO