Re: ACP already exists — you're right, that's why we built ATC instead

A developer renamed their protocol to Agent Trust Card (ATC) after discovering IBM/BeeAI's existing Agent Client Protocol (ACP). ATC focuses on identity, trust, encryption, and payment for AI agents, contrasting with ACP's agent-to-agent messaging. The developer positions ATC as an SSL certificate-like layer for agents.

Hey @kordless https://dev.to/kordless — thank you for pointing out agentclientprotocol.com https://agentclientprotocol.com You're absolutely right that ACP already exists. When I discovered this right after publishing my ACP article , I immediately renamed our protocol to ATC Agent Trust Card — because what we built is fundamentally different: | Feature | ACP IBM/BeeAI | ATC ours | |---|---|---| | Purpose | Agent-to-agent messaging | Identity + trust + encryption + payment | | Identity | ❌ | ✅ Cryptographic Ed25519 | | Trust score | ❌ | ✅ Sentinel audit 0-10 | | Encryption | ❌ | ✅ End-to-end public key in card | | Protocol translation | ❌ | ✅ LangChain ↔ MCP ↔ AutoGen | | Payments | ❌ | ✅ USDC + x402 escrow | | Marketplace | ❌ | ✅ 8,764 skills | ATC is more like SSL certificates for agents — it's not a messaging protocol, it's an identity/trust/payment layer. Think of it as: ACP handles the conversation, ATC handles the trust + payment. Full ATC spec: marketnow.site/atc-spec.json https://marketnow.site/atc-spec.json Appreciate the callout — it made our positioning much clearer