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How it works

Documents are hashed on your side and only the hash is submitted to the cronStamp Web API. Hashes are collected into a Merkle tree, and its root is written to the blockchains you choose. You get back a certificate holding everything needed to prove the document later, verified without contacting cronStamp.

Overview: today your file is hashed and only the fingerprint is sent to cronStamp, which anchors it on the blockchain and returns a certificate. Years later, the file and the certificate are checked against the blockchain locally, without cronStamp, and show whether the file is unchanged or was altered.
Years later
File The same file. Change a single byte and its fingerprint no longer matches. Local verification in your browser, without cronStamp Recomputes the Merkle root from file and certificate and compares it to the blockchain. Verify by hand → Certificate The certificate you kept. Nothing else is needed, not even cronStamp.
unchanged Fingerprint, Merkle path and on-chain root match: the file existed at the stamped time and is unchanged. altered The roots differ: the file was changed or the certificate belongs to another file.

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