RIF THE ROOT INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORK

Part I: Context and Vision 
A message from our team 
The document you’re about to read introduces The Root Infrastructure Framework Token (the ‘RIF 
Token’) and The Root Infrastructure Framework Open Standard (the ‘RIFOS’). As described in 
further detail below, the RIFOS aims to bridge the gap that exists today between Blockchain 
technologies and its mass-market adoption. It is also designed to help and enable existing and future 
Blockchain projects find the best way to really create solutions using decentralized applications. 
This document is not a technical whitepaper, but rather a summary of our vision and how we 
propose to implement it. We chose this approach because, aside from the value that can be attributed 
to technical whitepapers, we believe that showing a working product is an even more powerful 
statement of what we can achieve. RSK Labs’ reputation as a global pioneer in Blockchain 
technology speaks to that end.
The first RSK technical whitepaper, published by our Chief Scientist Sergio Demian Lerner in 
November 2015 (the “RSK Technical Whitepaper”), described the first fully functional smart contract 
platform secured by the Bitcoin network using a side chain with merge-mining (the “RSK Smart 
Protocol”). This whitepaper is available for downloading here. 
Since November 2015, our team has continued to deliver on that initial vision, opening the Test-net 
version to the public in May 2017 and the beta Main-net version in January 2018. The latest 
information about the current state of the RSK Smart Protocol can be found at www.rsk.co. 
Today, the RSK Smart Protocol has become a global project, led by an international team that aims 
to serve the global community. We are in awe to see how far our initial vision has grown, and we are 
now focused on sharing our vision and motivations for launching this new phase, with the hope that 
our community will be inspired and will help us fulfil it. Our goal is ambitious, and in order to 
achieve it, we will build on and leverage the work done by RSK Labs. This is just the beginning of 
our journey, and we sincerely hope that we can continue to rely on the support and contribution of 
our amazing community around the world to help us take the adoption of Blockchain technologies to 
the next level. 
Sincerely, 
The RSK Labs & RIF Labs Team
Background 
Over the last 30 years, the world has seen transformational changes in the way humans, 
organizations and governments interact. Internet permeated the way we do business, the way we 
communicate with each other, the way we entertain ourselves and so forth. Yet, this “information 
revolution” has not been equal across the globe. According to PEW Internet, in 2016 the global 
median of Internet penetration was 67% but, as the graphic below shows, developed and emerging 
economies have been impacted in very different percentages:
Mobile phones, and particularly smartphones, are helping close this gap fast, and within the next 
decade over 80% of the world’s population is expected to have access to the Internet through their 
smartphones. 
It is hard to fathom the incredible social and economic impact that equal access to information 
technology would have around the world. 
Yet, while the Internet has been revolutionary and transformative, it has not yet been as successful 
in allowing people from all over the world to exchange value so freely. Indeed, the exchange of value

RIF THE ROOT INFRASTRUCTURE FRAMEWORK