BLOCKCHAIN-BASED SECURE LEGAL DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT FOR TAMPER-PROOF CREDENTIAL SYSTEMS

Abstract

Blockchain technology offers a powerful solution for securing and managing legal and academic documents by providing decentralization, transparency, and immutability. This research presents a blockchain-based framework for tamper-proof legal document and credential management aimed at improving the reliability and efficiency of traditional verification systems. In the proposed architecture, applicants submit their credentials, which are authenticated by issuing institutions and stored in the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) for decentralized file management, while only cryptographic hashes are recorded on the blockchain to ensure integrity, reduce storage costs, and improve scalability. The system supports multiple consensus mechanisms, including Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, and experimental results demonstrate that Proof of Stake achieves the best balance between security and transaction efficiency. A prototype implementation achieved a transaction throughput of up to 1,000 transactions per second with an average confirmation time of 5 seconds, significantly reducing verification time and manual processing compared to conventional methods. Comparative analysis confirms that the proposed solution enhances security, minimizes fraud, and improves cost-effectiveness. The framework provides a strong foundation for future extensions such as cross-chain interoperability, AI-driven fraud detection, and mobile-based verification platforms