About Next Bridge

Next Bridge is a full-stack cryptocurrency exchange platform built from scratch as a university senior project. It implements the operational surface of a real exchange — spot trading on twelve blockchain networks, peer-to-peer settlement under escrow, identity verification via Sumsub, a Proof of Reserves engine, a public transparency log, and an AI-native interface accessible through a Model Context Protocol server, a website, and a Telegram bot — without holding or moving real customer funds.

The platform was designed and implemented by Zakaria Swaidan (ID 12220368) and Ali Sajjad Mawla (ID 12190013), under the supervision of Dr. Elie Nasr at the American University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, Department of Information and Communications Technology. The course is ICT 499, the senior design capstone.

Lebanon has no licensed cryptocurrency exchange and no domestic legal framework for digital assets. Lebanese banks refuse to interface with crypto-related businesses, and informal peer-to-peer trading lacks the identity and dispute infrastructure that real exchanges provide. Next Bridge is a demonstration of the architecture, security posture, and user experience a domestic exchange would need if a Lebanese regulatory path eventually opened. It is also a research project on what an agentic, AI-first exchange interface looks like when designed in 2026, rather than retrofitted on top of a 2018-era REST surface.

Most exchanges expose a website. Next Bridge additionally exposes a Model Context Protocol server, a Telegram bot, and a public REST API (with an OpenAPI 3.1 specification and a typed TypeScript Software Development Kit), all sharing the same internal pipeline so a request from an agent flows through the identical security and policy checks as a request from a human user. The platform also publishes the Exchange-via-MCP Protocol v1.0, an open specification any exchange may implement to interoperate with agentic clients, hosted at github.com/zack40x/exchange-mcp-protocol.

Next Bridge is a university project, not a regulated financial service. No real funds are accepted, custodied, or moved. Deposit addresses are deterministically generated for demonstration; balances are simulated; order execution is implemented against real public price feeds but settles inside the platform's own database. The platform should not be used to make actual investment decisions, and no document submitted to it should be a real government-issued identity document.

See the security policy, Proof of Reserves attestation, Glasshouse public log, and the public metrics page.