Trusted Timestamping via the Bitcoin Blockchain

Abstract

In his talk, Bela Gipp, Professor for Data & Knowledge Engineering at the University of Wuppertal, presented the blockchain-based trusted timestamping service Origin-Stamp. Bela developed OriginStamp as a Ph.D. student in 2012, as no convenient and tamper-proof method existed to create timestamps. Since then, OriginStamp has been used over 6 million times by researchers, journalists in war regions, pharmaceutical companies, and individuals. Use cases are the timestamping of ideas for patent applications, timestamping of digital archives or timestamping of pre-existing damage, e.g., when hiring a rental car. The service can be used via a website, mobile phone apps, or an API, which allows developers to easily make use of trusted timestamping in their own applications. Trusted timestamping is the process of securely tracing the creation and modification time of any digital file. In contrast to conventional commercial timestamping authorities, OriginStamp uses the blockchain of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as a decentralized, tamper-proof, and cost-efficient timestamping authority. To try it yourself, visit www.originstamp.org.