Summary
Bitcoin’s OpenTimestamps protocol significantly enhances transparency, security, and accountability in various sectors, including digital assets and elections, by providing verifiable timestamps and immutable records on the blockchain.
Election Integrity and Blockchain Technology
SimpleProof uses OpenTimestamps protocol to create cryptographic proofs that protect digital election documents from post-election tampering, making results verifiable and tamper-evident.
The solution leverages Bitcoin’s blockchain to timestamp election results, providing a trustless, verifiable source of truth for digital information and reducing reliance on centralized authorities.
SimpleProof’s Merkle tree structure ties specific documents to Bitcoin transactions, enabling anyone to verify document existence and integrity using SHA-256 hashes and mathematical proofs.
Practical Implementation
Even small counties with limited IT resources can implement this technology, as demonstrated in rural Screven County, Georgia (population 15,000), where a single IT specialist integrated the system.
The solution protects election results from tampering at county, state, and national levels, even if higher offices are compromised, as shown in Screven County, Georgia.
Scalability and Efficiency
OpenTimestamps allows one Bitcoin transaction per block to timestamp trillions of files, making human history immutable and future-proof against potential attackers.
Bitcoin’s 99.99% network uptime and status as the longest-running public blockchain with proven decentralization make it the most secure solution for timestamping government data.
Privacy and Personal Use
Citizens can hash personal files using OpenTimestamps to prove their existence at a specific time, preserving privacy while providing immutable proof against future claims or AI manipulation.
Cost and Accessibility
The OpenTimestamps Foundation covers the cost of this public service, making it free to use, though running the open-source code independently is recommended for sensitive files.
Historical Preservation
The National Archives in the US can use Bitcoin’s OpenTimestamps to assure the public of their archiving integrity while maintaining responsibility for file preservation.
Global Applications
OpenTimestamps has been used to secure contentious election results with paper ballots in Scriven County, Georgia and Tennessee, providing a trustless and verifiable system in adversarial contexts.
Future Implications
As Bitcoin scales to timestamp all human data, sacrificing 1% of each block space is considered worthwhile to make history immutable and protect against future threats like AI or aliens.
OpenTimestamps provides a mathematical proof of when a digital event occurred, complementing signatures that prove who, creating a complete picture of who, what, when, where through trust-minimized processes.