Keynote: Anchorage Digital - Visual Sign Framework for Transparent Blockchain Transactions

Have you ever signed a blockchain transaction without fully understanding what those cryptic strings of data actually meant? If you raised your hand, you're not alone—and according to Anchorage Digital, this represents one of crypto's most fundamental security problems. At Breakpoint 2025, Prasanna Gautam, who leads Protocol Research at Anchorage, introduced Visual Sign: an open-source framework designed to make every transaction crystal clear before you hit that confirm button.

Summary

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Anchorage Digital, the only federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, has developed and open-sourced Visual Sign, a framework that decodes blockchain transactions into human-readable formats. The company built this tool to serve its institutional clients—including major banks and asset holders managing enormous sums of capital—who simply cannot afford to "blind sign" transactions the way many retail users do.

The core problem Visual Sign addresses is deceptively simple: blockchain users are routinely trained to sign transactions they don't understand. While transaction data becomes readable after it's been mined and appears on explorers like Solscan, by that point it may already be too late if something has gone wrong. For institutions with strict compliance requirements and legal review processes, this blind signing approach is fundamentally incompatible with how they operate.

Gautam emphasized that while solutions exist in fragmented forms—wallets building native DeFi integrations, post-transaction explorers, and various data providers—the industry has been duplicating effort without a unified standard. Visual Sign aims to be that standard, built to work across multiple chains including Solana, and designed so any wallet or application can integrate with it. The framework runs in a trusted execution environment using AWS Nitro enclaves, providing cryptographic attestation that the visualization logic hasn't been tampered with.

The broader vision connects to cross-chain interoperability, with Anchorage believing that common visualization standards could become as foundational as wallet standards have become for Solana. By building this tool openly and transparently, they're inviting the entire ecosystem to contribute and improve upon it.

Key Points:

The Blind Signing Problem

The cryptocurrency industry has inadvertently trained users to sign transactions they don't understand. When users interact with DeFi protocols, they're typically presented with raw bytes or base64-encoded data that means nothing to the average person—or even to experienced developers without specialized decoding tools. Gautam pointed out that while some attendees might claim they always understand what they're signing, the reality is that most users either haven't deeply engaged with DeFi, haven't encountered these visualization issues, or are blindly trusting the applications they interact with.

This problem is particularly acute for institutional users. Large banks and asset management firms operate under strict compliance regimes where every transaction must be reviewed, often by legal teams. The concept of signing something without understanding its full implications is simply not acceptable in traditional finance, and this gap has been a major barrier to institutional DeFi adoption. Security failures in this context don't just hurt individual users—they can damage the entire ecosystem's credibility and slow mainstream adoption.

Visual Sign's Technical Architecture

Visual Sign runs inside a trusted execution environment (TEE), specifically AWS Nitro enclaves, which provides hardware-level isolation and attestation. This means that even if an attacker compromised the broader system, they couldn't tamper with the visualization logic running inside the enclave. The attestation process allows signers to verify that the code producing their transaction visualization is exactly what it claims to be—the same verification process Anchorage uses for its institutional infrastructure.

The framework is built in Rust and includes isolated programming interfaces for Solana specifically. Anchorage has designed it to be modular, with plans to incorporate feedback loops from block explorers and data providers to continuously improve pre-signing visualizations. The team acknowledges this is just a starting point—they want to add transaction simulations and other data sources over time. As Gautam noted, security is never "done"; adversaries evolve, and defensive tools must evolve alongside them.

Institutional Requirements and Compliance

For institutional clients managing billions of dollars, the stakes of a single bad transaction are catastrophic. Unlike retail users who might lose a few hundred dollars to a phishing attack, institutions face regulatory scrutiny, fiduciary liability, and reputational damage that could threaten their entire business. Anchorage built its infrastructure from the ground up around the principle that users must always know what they're signing.

The company operates multiple regulatory licenses globally, including the only federal crypto bank charter in the United States. This regulatory experience has shaped their understanding of what institutions need: not just custody and trading, but governance, settlement, and now DeFi integration—all with the same transparency and audit trail that traditional financial transactions require. Visual Sign is a direct response to institutional demand for DeFi access without compromising on compliance standards.

Open Source and Ecosystem Collaboration

Rather than keeping Visual Sign proprietary, Anchorage has fully open-sourced the framework. Developers can build it locally, run it on their own infrastructure, and contribute improvements back to the codebase. Gautam specifically called out Anagram's contribution of a decoder for their SWIG smart accounts as an example of the collaborative approach they're encouraging.

The decision to make Visual Sign multi-chain rather than Solana-exclusive reflects Anchorage's belief that common standards benefit everyone. Just as Solana's wallet standard has improved the user experience across the ecosystem, a visualization standard could provide similar benefits—potentially even laying groundwork for future cross-chain security improvements. Anchorage is actively engaging with Solana's own clear sign initiatives, viewing them as complementary rather than competitive efforts.

Porto Wallet Integration

Anchorage demonstrated Visual Sign integration through Porto, their self-custodial wallet product. The demonstration showed a Jupiter swap transaction decoded at high fidelity, with all relevant details presented in a human-readable format rather than raw encoded data. This represents a significant improvement over the typical wallet experience where users see only amounts and destination addresses without understanding the full transaction context.

The high-fidelity approach is intentional for new applications, as Anchorage wants to start with maximum information before simplifying for consumer-focused wallets. The goal is to make transactions as transparent as possible while maintaining the speed and convenience that makes DeFi attractive in the first place. Porto users can now create smart wallets that combine custody-grade safety with the rapid execution that internet-native capital markets demand.

Facts + Figures

• Anchorage Digital operates the only federally chartered crypto bank in the United States
• Visual Sign runs in AWS Nitro trusted execution environments for hardware-level security
• The framework is fully open-source and available for any wallet or application to integrate
• Visual Sign is built in Rust with isolated programming interfaces specifically for Solana
• Anagram has contributed a decoder for their SWIG smart accounts to the Visual Sign repository
• Anchorage's institutional infrastructure serves some of the largest asset holders in the world
• The company offers custody, trading, governance, and settlement services across multiple jurisdictions
• Porto is Anchorage's self-custodial wallet product that integrates Visual Sign
• Transaction data is typically only readable after mining via explorers, creating a security gap
• Anchorage is actively engaging with Solana's clear sign initiatives as complementary efforts

Top Quotes

• "We are actually training users to sign things they don't understand. It's fundamentally a problem."

• "Institutions don't blind sign. If you have ever interacted with a company that has a legal document, how many lawyers have to go through a review process for moving any funds?"

• "Being able to read that on chain on an explorer of all the money you lost for your clients is devastating. And that could be a risk to the whole ecosystem."

• "One of the other things that has been notable as I've started talking about visual sign to other industry peers is usually it starts with disbelief that why doesn't this already exist?"

• "We want to build a tool that everyone can use, every wallet can actually integrate with."

• "We believe that common standards, that every chain, every builder that wants to build a new kind of chain can target, will help us get to better design and better security outcomes."

• "Anyone who has built a secure system knows once you solve one problem, the adversaries evolve, and things just keep getting interesting."

• "Just like wallet standard, Solana supported wallet standard, we believe visualization could also be an interoperable standard."

Questions Answered

What is Visual Sign and why was it created?

Visual Sign is an open-source framework developed by Anchorage Digital that decodes blockchain transactions into human-readable formats before users sign them. It was created because the crypto industry has a fundamental visualization problem—users routinely sign transactions without understanding what the raw encoded data actually means. For institutional clients managing large sums of money, blind signing is simply not acceptable due to compliance requirements and fiduciary responsibilities. Visual Sign addresses this by providing transparent, verifiable transaction decoding that runs in a trusted execution environment.

How does Visual Sign ensure the transaction visualization is trustworthy?

Visual Sign runs inside AWS Nitro trusted execution environments, which provide hardware-level isolation and cryptographic attestation. This means the visualization logic operates in a secure enclave that cannot be tampered with, even if other parts of the system are compromised. The attestation process allows signers to verify that the code producing their visualization is exactly the published, auditable version. This is the same security model Anchorage uses for its institutional infrastructure, bringing enterprise-grade security to transaction visualization.

Why did Anchorage make Visual Sign open source?

Anchorage open-sourced Visual Sign because they recognized the industry was duplicating effort on transaction visualization without a unified standard. By making the framework freely available, any wallet or application can integrate it, and developers can contribute improvements back to the codebase. Anchorage believes that common standards benefit the entire ecosystem—similar to how Solana's wallet standard improved user experience across all wallets. They want to build this tool with the community, incorporating feedback from DApp developers and other ecosystem participants.

Does Visual Sign only work with Solana?

No, Visual Sign is designed as a multi-chain framework. While Anchorage has built specific isolated programming interfaces for Solana, the framework supports multiple blockchain ecosystems. Anchorage believes that standardized visualization across chains could be foundational for future cross-chain security improvements. They're engaging with multiple blockchain communities, including Solana's clear sign initiatives, viewing these as complementary efforts toward better transaction transparency industry-wide.

How can developers integrate Visual Sign into their applications?

Anchorage has provided documentation and code repositories for developers who want to integrate Visual Sign. The framework is designed to be reproducible—developers can build it locally and run it on their own infrastructure without depending on Anchorage's systems. For wallets or applications interested in integration support, Anchorage has established a Telegram channel for direct communication and offers to work with teams on implementation. The company encourages DApp developers building interesting applications to reach out for collaboration on wallet integrations.

What's the difference between Visual Sign and existing block explorers?

Block explorers show decoded transaction data after transactions have already been mined on-chain—by which point it may be too late if something went wrong. Visual Sign provides this same readable format before the user signs, when they can still make an informed decision about whether to proceed. Additionally, Visual Sign's trusted execution environment provides cryptographic guarantees about the integrity of the visualization, while explorer displays are typically just web interfaces without such verification mechanisms.