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Bitcoin.com, the leading advocate for Bitcoin’s largest fork, is launching a notarial service to verify and authenticate documents. The new function will will allow anyone to prove their ownership of timestamped documents, photos or videos directly on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, without needing another person to record them.

Securing ownership of copyrighted material through traditional means like patents can be costly and will often require the validation of authorized third parties (notaries). According to The Balance, typical notarial fees might range from $2 to $20 per signature, although notarizing mortgages may cost up to $100.

Bitcoin Cash probably won’t be used in the courtroom anytime soon, but the notarial tool does provide a simple way to prove the existence and provenance of documents at a reduced cost. At the time of writing, the cost of the Bitcoin.com Notary is 0.00005 BCH, or less than $0.02 at the time of publication.

How It Works

With Bitcoin Cash Notary, users can create a timestamped proof of a document’s existence without third party aid. Once submitted, a cryptographic imprint of the document, which can also be a photo or video file, is stored in the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, and linked to the time of submission. The submission then acts like a time capsule, validating documents for verification at later dates.

All that’s required after submission is to compare the original with the imprint on the blockchain whenever verification is necessary. Since the documents themselves are not stored on the blockchain, their contents cannot be exposed, yet remain easy to verify.

Trustless mechanisms like the Bitcoin Cash-based Notary tool are increasingly becoming the norm, as more services begin to realize that blockchains are the best option for storing, securing and transferring any private data.