The questions asked first.
Answered here rather than in a meeting, and answered in the form the objection actually takes — including the one that argues against us.
A large player will add this in a sprint.
They will add the fields. They will not add the discipline: honest time forbids the optimisations they grow on, starting with serving cache as fresh. And even with the fields, they would not have the passed audits, the agreed contract language or the habit of reviewers. Standards are copied over years, not sprints.
Why should we believe you?
Don't. Check. The verifier is open, the issuance log is public, keys sit in an HSM, and backdating is mathematically visible — including against us. The system is designed so that the question of belief does not arise.
This is another middleman, so it costs more.
The bill is split. Execution is priced near cost, because that is not where the value is. Control is a separate line that no execution provider has at all. Comparing us with a bare provider on price-per-request does not work, and that is deliberate.
The regulator does not require this yet.
The requirement arrives before the regulator does: from internal audit, from a client's contract, after the first incident. The product is for those who already have it, not for convincing those who do not.
What if the source objects?
We identify ourselves, we do not defeat protections, we reduce load through honest caching, and we buy licensed channels where they exist. A source is better off with this layer than with anonymous extraction — that is a deliberate part of the design, not a concession.
What happens if you disappear?
Every passport already issued stays verifiable: the format is open, the keys are published, the verifier runs without us. Evidence does not die with its operator. That was the intent from the first release.
Does a passport prove the world was really like that?
No, and it is important to be precise. A passport proves what was observed, when, by which method and from where — a chain of custody, not omniscience. Strength is added by independent corroboration, qualified timestamps and the public issuance log. Anyone claiming more than that is selling something else.