Anchor Service

```
cip:
title: Anchor Service
author: Joel Thorstensson (@oed), Janko Simonovic (@simonovic86)
discussions-to:
status: Idea
category: Standards
type: RFC
created: 2020-05-22
requires:
replaces:
```

> 🚨 This is a placeholder for an idea, and we will work to draft the CIP at a later time. Feel free to leave comments and ideas on this issue.

## Simple Summary

An **anchor service** is a layer 2 service used by a Ceramic node to batch multiple signed records (document updates) and anchor them into a blockchain using a single transaction.

## Abstract

Anchor services are not explicitly required by the protocol and users can always directly anchor their own transactions in a blockchain one at a time.

## Motivation

Anchor services will play a crucial role in the Ceramic network.

- **Increased Scale**:

- **Lower Cost**:

- **Better User Experience**:

- **Metadata for Indexing**: Anchor services add additional metadata and information to anchors that makes it easier for indexing services to know which documents have been updated via an anchor.

## Specification

## Usage

## Security Considerations

## Implementations

- **[ceramic-anchor-service](https://github.com/ceramicnetwork/ceramic-anchor-service)**: An implementation of this specification that anchors batches of signed records on the Ethereum blockchain.