Today we are announcing Transparency Network V2, the most significant infrastructure upgrade since Truthlocks launched. V2 re-architects how attestations are recorded, replicated, and queried — delivering an append-only merkle log that is cryptographically auditable, a real-time synchronization layer that eliminates polling, and throughput improvements that let enterprise customers verify credentials at ten times the previous rate.
Why We Built V2
The original transparency network served us well through the first ten million attestations, but our largest customers began surfacing two pain points. First, verification latency during traffic spikes could exceed 400 ms as the system fell back to sequential reads. Second, auditors wanted a continuous proof-of-inclusion mechanism rather than periodic snapshots. V2 addresses both issues at the protocol level.
Append-Only Merkle Log
At the heart of V2 is a tamper-evident, append-only merkle log. Every attestation — whether it is a credential issuance, a status update, or a revocation — is hashed and inserted into a binary merkle tree. The tree head is signed with our platform Ed25519 key and published every five seconds. Any observer can independently verify that:
- A specific attestation is included in the log (proof of inclusion).
- The log has never been retroactively modified (proof of consistency).
- The ordering of events matches what the issuer submitted (proof of sequence).
This design draws from the same family of data structures used by Certificate Transparency (RFC 6962) and binary transparency systems, adapted for the credential verification domain. The signed tree head is a compact 96-byte value that clients can cache and compare across requests.
Real-Time Synchronization
V1 required verifiers to poll the API for updates. V2 introduces a WebSocket-based synchronization channel that pushes new tree heads, inclusion proofs, and revocation events to connected clients within milliseconds of the underlying write being committed.
For customers who prefer HTTP, we also offer Server-Sent Events (SSE) on the same endpoint. Both transports deliver identical payloads, so you can choose whichever fits your infrastructure. The developer documentation includes integration guides for both options.
10x Throughput
V2 replaces the single-writer model with a sharded ingestion pipeline. Attestations are partitioned by tenant and written to independent log shards that are periodically merged into the global tree. This architecture lets us sustain over 50,000 writes per second across the cluster — a 10x improvement over V1 peak capacity.
Read throughput benefits as well. The new query engine serves inclusion proofs directly from an in-memory cache of recent tree state, reducing P99 verification latency from 380 ms to under 40 ms.
New Explorer Dashboard
Alongside the protocol upgrade, we are shipping a redesigned Transparency Explorer inside the console. The explorer lets compliance teams browse the log in real time, inspect individual attestations, download inclusion proofs, and export audit reports. Filters for issuer, credential type, and time range make it straightforward to investigate specific verification events.
Migration Path
V2 is backward-compatible at the API level. Existing REST endpoints continue to work without modification — they now return V2 inclusion proofs in the response headers. Customers using our SDKs will receive automatic V2 support when they upgrade to the latest release. If you use raw HTTP, the only change is an optional X-Transparency-Proof header on verification responses.
We will maintain V1 log endpoints in read-only mode for twelve months. During this period, all V1 data will be mirrored into the V2 log so that historical attestations remain auditable under the new tree.
What Comes Next
V2 lays the groundwork for several features on our roadmap: multi-party witnesses that co-sign tree heads, cross-domain log federation, and selective disclosure proofs anchored to the transparency log. We will share more details on these capabilities in the coming months.
Transparency Network V2 is available today on all enterprise plans. Sandbox access is open to all developers — head to the documentation to get started.