Blockchain Startup Stampery Certifies The Existence, Integrity And Ownership Of Any Data

Stampery plans to make the nascent blockchain technology easy enough to use that artists, marketers, lawyers, and other professionals can use it for their regular legal needs. Bitcoin’s blockchain, the ledger that records all transactions that happen in its network, can also serve as a record for other information, and its decentralized quality makes it a superior ledger compared to human tracked ledgers.

“We are very proud to be able to launch Stampery, the XXIst century’s notary, in the US in such a prestigious event. Stampery solves data certification problems, let them be documents emails, contracts, creations etc.. with a technology developed on the bitcoin blockchain protocol, the current most promising technology”
— – Luis Ivan Cuende, Stampery Co-Founder and CTO

The blockchain is maintained by a network of miners that verify the bitcoin network, and thus, it is commonly referenced as immutable and unalterable — much more so than human maintained ledgers. But the nascent technology is difficult to use, something that has contributed to its lack of adoption in real use cases. Stampery plans to ease the process, and develop enterprise solutions.

“We use the bitcoin blockchain to prove the existence, integrity and ownership of any document,” co-founder and CEO Daniele Levi told TechCrunch prior to Disrupt San Francisco 2015, a startup conference where Stampery launched. “At [its] heart, the blockchain is [a] distributed database. We use this technology to be able to generate this proof.”

“You can generate an immutable and accurate proof of existence and integrity for any document,” he said during his presentation at the event.

“Anybody in the world could verify automatically and at zero cost that this document was made on June 1st and wasn’t modified.”
— – Daniele Levi, Stampery CEO

The service currently has a website where users can access the service, an IOS app in the works, and an API. Possible use cases could be certifying a will, a message in a family or business dispute, any contract, intellectual property, or other sensitive legal documents. Stampery is free for low use customers, but charges US$9.99 for heavy users of the service, as well as offering custom plans for businesses.

Unlike regular notaries, no one can hack Stampery and destroy or alter any records notarized by the service, because it is stored in the public bitcoin blockchain. Which also means if the startup shutdowns or disappears the documents recorded by the service would still be there on the public bitcoin blockchain.

Even though documents are recorded on the public blockchain — for all to see and verify — the actual contents of the documents are not. Only a hash, or unique identifier, of the content is available to the public. There is no way to extract the content from any identifier, so the customer is the only one that can access the content.

“The bitcoin/blockchain as of today is regarded like the internet was regarded in the 90’s, with great potential,” explained Levi in a press release. “Our product is a non financial bitcoin application because it uses its extraordinary features to generate reliable and unforgeable proof of anything that has occurred and that has generated a digital register. The proof of existence, integrity and ownership that Stampery generates is valid globally, unchangeable, and can be verified by any independent third party in a question of seconds.”

“This is revolutionary because today maths and not trust in a central authority allows us to verify that something has occurred in a certain moment in time. Because of its decentralized characteristics, the blockchain is completely safe being protected by the most powerful network of computers in the world.”
— – Levi

Trust, Fraud, and Identity

The byproduct of Bitcoin’s public blockchain is the trustless ledger, which is vital for the digital currency to work, but also has possible uses in a variety of other applications. Having an identity that can be verified without the use of third-parties is one of them, being able to verify unique or high value items is another.

London-based startup EverLedger is currently recording the characteristics of diamonds on the Bitcoin blockchain, so the gems can be matched against a public record in the future and flagged if they are stolen or not.

“[Bitcoin] gives us a global ledger, a global transparency over the supply chain and the chain of custody of the diamond. Where did the diamond come from? Was it a blood diamond? What’s the provenance? What mine did it come out of?”
— – Leanne Kemp, Everledger CEO

Another startup, Ascribe, is bringing a similar business minded approach to recording digital art on the blockchain. They enable artists to copyright — currently limited to creative commons but working on making other licences possible —  by recording their art onto the blockchain. An artist doesn’t need to know anything about blockchain, own any bitcoin, or even know they are using such technology to use the service, making the process that much easier.

“The editions declared by the artist is a promise to buyers that there will be no more editions. This covenant is legally enforceable as a contract. Since ascribe tracks artworks and editions, if an artist breaks the contract, it’s very easy to see.”
— – Greg McMullen, Ascribe Chief Policy Officer

The firm is also developing web crawlers that will scan the web for violations of the copyright recorded using the service.