Last updated 3 months ago
AI makes it easy to fabricate content, while verifying authenticity is hard. Existing timestamping tools are complex or limited, leaving no simple way to prove authorship or trust information.
A user-friendly platform for timestamping, authorship proofs, agreements, and verifiable statements via decentralized identity and LLM support—creating an open repository of trusted human knowledge.
Please provide your proposal title
TruthLedger: Decentralized Authenticated Data for the AI Age
Enter the amount of funding you are requesting in ADA
200000
Please specify how many months you expect your project to last
10
What is the problem you want to solve?
AI makes it easy to fabricate content, while verifying authenticity is hard. Existing timestamping tools are complex or limited, leaving no simple way to prove authorship or trust information.
Supporting links
Does your project have any dependencies on other organizations, technical or otherwise?
Yes
Describe any dependencies or write 'No dependencies'
Will your project's outputs be fully open source?
Yes
Please provide details on the intellectual property (IP) status of your project outputs, including whether they will be released as open source or retained under another licence.
Open-source
Please choose the most relevant theme and tag related to the outcomes of your proposal
Infrastructure
Describe what makes your idea innovative compared to what has been previously launched in the market (whether by you or others).
Our proposal creates a complete trust layer, where information is verifiably linked to real identities, enriched with AI analysis, and made accessible to both humans and AI systems in a transparent and machine-readable form. Existing solutions address only isolated parts of this problem. Traditional proof-of-existence services on other blockchains allow users to anchor a hash on-chain, but they do not verify the identity of the author, do not support multi-party agreements, and offer no semantic or authenticity analysis. They act as neutral notaries rather than systems capable of establishing trust in the source and meaning of the information.
CardanoWall is an important reference point within the Cardano ecosystem, but its purpose remains different from ours. It allows users to store messages and file hashes on-chain, and it provides encrypted storage, but it does not use decentralized identity, does not bind content to verifiable human authors, and requires users to interact through a Cardano wallet. It is primarily a tool for simple proof-of-existence and optional public posting, not a platform designed for structured agreements, verified authorship, or AI-assisted authenticity review.
In contrast, our proposal integrates decentralized identity or wallet-based signatures as a fundamental element of authorship, ensuring that content is not only timestamped but also attributed to a verified identity. We introduce a system for agreements and promises where multiple parties can sign a shared document, creating an immutable, trustable record. We incorporate an AI authenticity layer that estimates human versus AI authorship and performs fact-checking, and this evaluation becomes part of the stored data. We also expose a public verification interface specifically designed so that AI agents and automated systems can reliably access and reference authenticated content.
This combination—identity-anchored authorship, decentralized storage, timestamping, multi-party agreements, AI-based authenticity scoring, and a machine-readable verification layer—does not exist in current Cardano tools or in timestamping platforms on other blockchains. What makes our proposal unique is that it unifies all these elements into one platform aimed at solving the emerging challenge of trust in an environment where synthetic content is abundant and verifiable human knowledge becomes increasingly valuable.
Describe what your prototype or MVP will demonstrate, and where it can be accessed.
Our MVP will demonstrate the core functionality of the platform and show how users can create verifiable, identity-anchored, timestamped records without needing any technical knowledge of blockchain. It will allow users to log in using a Cardano wallet or a decentralized identity, upload data such as articles, analyses, documents, or agreements, sign them, store them in decentralized storage, and automatically generate a timestamped proof anchored on Cardano. The MVP will also include the basic version of our AI authenticity engine, which provides an assessment of whether the content is likely created by a human or AI and performs an initial fact-checking pass. All stored records will be publicly verifiable through a dedicated interface.
The MVP will be accessible directly through our dedicated URL, where users will be able to create an account, submit data, sign agreements, and view or verify records.
Beyond the MVP, we envision a browser extension that will make the process even more seamless. This extension will allow users to timestamp and sign content directly from any webpage, enabling quick preservation of contracts, articles, or online material with just a few clicks. This feature is planned as a future enhancement once the core platform is live and stable.
Describe realistic measures of success, ideally with on-chain metrics.
Realistic measures of success can be tracked directly through on-chain activity, which reflects genuine usage of the platform. Each time a user uploads data, signs an agreement, or submits a public promise, the platform generates a metadata transaction on Cardano. Another measurable signal is the number of unique decentralized identities or Cardano wallets interacting with the platform, showing how many verified authors are actively using it to anchor their work or agreements on-chain. Multi-party agreements signed through the system will also produce verifiable on-chain signatures, allowing us to track how many users rely on the platform for more complex, identity-bound interactions.
An additional and equally important measure of success will come from payment transactions. Since the platform will operate as a paid service, each timestamping action or agreement submission will include a fee. These on-chain payments provide a transparent record of real economic usage, demonstrating that users value the service enough to pay for it.
Together, these on-chain indicators—timestamping metadata entries, identity-linked signatures, multi-party agreement activity, and paid service transactions—form a realistic and objective framework for evaluating the success and growth of the platform.
Please describe your proposed solution and how it addresses the problem
Our solution is a decentralized platform that enables users to create verifiable, identity-anchored, timestamped records in a way that is intuitive, secure, and suitable for both human and machine verification. It addresses the growing challenge of distinguishing authentic, human-originated data from synthetic or manipulated information by combining decentralized identity, document hashing, decentralized storage, AI-based authenticity analysis, and Cardano blockchain metadata into a single integrated workflow.
Every interaction with the platform begins with proper decentralized authentication. Users verify themselves either through a Cardano wallet or through a recognized decentralized identity (DID) provider such as Veridian or IAMX. Users must explicitly create or connect a DID that reflects their real identity as verified by the chosen DID provider, or they can rely on their Cardano wallet signature as a cryptographic author identifier. This ensures that all submitted content is bound to a persistent, verifiable digital identity whose trustworthiness stems from established DID frameworks rather than unverified self-reported information. In this way, timestamping does not only prove that data existed; it also reliably anchors authorship and accountability.
Once authenticated, users can upload various kinds of data—articles, research, statistics, studies, ideas, agreements, public promises, or even chatbot conversations. The platform generates a cryptographic hash of the file, stores the content in decentralized storage such as IPFS, and writes the hash, timestamp, and identity signature to the Cardano blockchain. This creates an immutable, permanent record proving the existence and authorship of the content at a specific moment in time. In the case of agreements involving multiple parties, each participant signs the document with their DID or Cardano wallet, and the final stored record includes all signatures, creating a tamper-proof and transparent multi-signature agreement.
A key differentiator of our solution is the integration of an optional AI authenticity and fact-checking engine. For each submitted document, users can choose whether they want the system to run an AI-powered analysis. If they accept, the platform will generate a probabilistic assessment indicating whether the content appears to be human-generated or AI-generated, and it can perform a basic fact-checking pass by comparing selected statements with trusted or publicly available sources. The resulting AI report can be stored alongside the original content, providing an additional layer of transparency for users or automated systems that later access the data. Importantly, this AI evaluation is entirely supplementary: it does not assert definitive truth, and its purpose is to offer helpful signals rather than replace human judgment. Users maintain full control over whether AI analysis is applied to their data.
To ensure that the stored data is useful across ecosystems, the platform exposes a public verification endpoint where anyone, including AI agents, can retrieve proofs of authenticity, authorship, and timestamps. This allows the platform to serve as a foundational trust layer for external applications and for AI models that require reliable, identity-anchored sources of information.
Although the platform is powered by decentralized technologies, it is designed to be easy to use even for non-technical individuals. Users interact through a clean and intuitive interface, while the platform handles hashing, signing, metadata creation, decentralized storage, and identity verification behind the scenes.
In future iterations, we plan to introduce a browser extension that enables users to timestamp and sign content directly from any webpage, allowing instant archiving and verification with minimal friction. Additional features—such as monetization options for authors, reputation frameworks, or community feedback mechanisms—can be built on top of the core functionality over time. The MVP, however, focuses exclusively on delivering a fully functional, identity-anchored, timestamping and verification platform. Some of these features may be delivered as part of the MVP, but we do not guarantee that we will be able to do so.
When we compare our solution with existing applications, it becomes clear that several projects address parts of the trust problem, but none of them provide the full combination of features, accessibility, and purpose that our platform offers.
CardanoWall is a notable project in the Cardano ecosystem, providing users with a way to anchor messages and file hashes on-chain. It also supports encrypted file handling and offers a simple interface for proof-of-existence. However, CardanoWall does not use decentralized identity, requires a Cardano wallet for interaction, and is focused mainly on individual timestamping. It does not provide multi-party agreement workflows, public promises, or any form of AI-based authenticity analysis. It is limited to basic PoE functionality.
TrivolTech’s solution for the Uttar Pradesh Police in India comes closer to the seriousness and scale of what we aim to achieve. Their system uses Cardano to track forensic evidence, preserving an immutable chain-of-custody. It is a powerful demonstration of blockchain’s value in sensitive, high-stakes environments. However, this system is not public, not general-purpose, and not built for open authorship or identity-bound content storage. It is tailored strictly to law enforcement procedures and cannot be used by individuals or organizations outside that workflow.
BlockSign, originally built on Bitcoin, allows users to sign documents digitally and anchor the corresponding hashes on the blockchain. It serves as a legally defensible digital notarization and e-signature system. While similar in that it deals with documents and signatures, BlockSign does not integrate decentralized identity standards, nor does it provide AI-based analysis or a public, machine-readable registry of authenticated knowledge. It focuses on digitally signing documents rather than building a broader trust framework around authorship, agreements, and verifiable public statements.
Looking more broadly, various timestamping platforms such as OriginStamp or OpenTimestamps exist purely to prove data integrity at a specific moment in time. These services focus on anchoring hashes to public blockchains. They do not verify the identity of the author, do not support multi-party workflows, do not attach meaning or context to the data, and certainly do not incorporate AI-based authenticity assessments. It is limited to basic PoE functionality.
There are also enterprise document-management solutions that combine blockchain with AI, but these tend to be closed, centralized systems intended for corporate compliance or internal audit. They do not provide open, on-chain identity-bound records, nor are they designed as public repositories of authenticated information. They are siloed applications, not decentralized public trust infrastructures.
Based on our research, we could not find a solution that truly matches what we intend to build. No existing platform combines decentralized identity, timestamping, decentralized storage, multi-party agreements, optional AI authenticity and fact-checking, and a public verification interface aimed at both human users and AI agents.
This is where our solution stands out. We are not building just another timestamping tool or document-signing service. Our platform unifies authorship, identity, agreements, data integrity, and AI transparency into one ecosystem. It is designed not only for individuals but also for organizations, institutions, and future AI systems that require reliable, verifiable, machine-readable data. In a world where synthetic content is increasingly indistinguishable from human-generated material, our solution creates a public, blockchain-backed foundation of trust that has no direct equivalent today.
The following link provides a more detailed analysis:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/16Qe_1-tmrY0R66AujA_15DjLooj75hGM67VcYwtI5Ho/edit?usp=sharing
Please define the positive impact your project will have on the wider Cardano community
Our application has the potential to become a foundational trust layer in an era where authentic information is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from synthetic, manipulated, or AI-generated content. By allowing users to create identity-anchored, timestamped, and verifiable records, the platform strengthens the reliability of digital information and restores a sense of accountability and provenance that is rapidly eroding in the modern information landscape.
The impact on individual users is immediate and practical. Researchers, authors, journalists, innovators, and professionals can securely publish their work with verifiable authorship. Ordinary users can safeguard important documents, agreements, or statements in a way that is transparent, permanent, and immune to alteration. Multi-party agreements become more trustworthy because they are backed by decentralized identity and immutable blockchain history. Optional AI authenticity reports reinforce transparency by giving users additional signals about the nature and credibility of the information they encounter.
For society as a whole, the platform helps address one of the defining challenges of the AI era: the collapse of informational trust. As AI models increasingly generate vast amounts of content, it becomes essential to have reliable mechanisms that identify what is genuinely authored by humans and who stands behind it. Our solution provides a structured way to verify authorship, timestamp important claims, and preserve critical information in a form that can be publicly inspected, referenced, and validated at any time.
The impact on Cardano is equally significant. The application actively promotes the use of decentralized identity, Cardano wallets, and on-chain metadata, showcasing Cardano’s strengths in identity, data integrity, and verifiable authenticity. Every interaction—whether it is a timestamped document, a signed agreement, or the creation of a DID-linked record—generates real on-chain activity, reinforcing Cardano’s position as a secure and practical platform for real-world use cases. By exposing a public verification interface that AI agents can consume, the solution positions Cardano as a trust infrastructure not only for human users but also for machine-driven systems that require authenticated data.
In the long term, this application can contribute to a broader ecosystem of verifiable knowledge, identity-backed data markets, trustworthy AI, and decentralized reputation systems built on Cardano. It expands the scope of what Cardano can be used for and demonstrates to the world that Cardano is not just a financial or governance platform, but a backbone for digital authenticity and human credibility in an increasingly AI-saturated environment.
What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability? How do you intend to validate if your approach is feasible?
The solution is built on well-established and well-understood components. Timestamping is a mature and thoroughly explored domain within blockchain ecosystems, and creating on-chain metadata records with document hashes is a straightforward, reliable, and already-proven approach on Cardano. Integrating the platform with a decentralized storage network such as IPFS or a similar system is also a realistic and manageable task, as these storage technologies are stable, widely adopted, and come with mature tooling and libraries that make implementation easier.
The integration of an LLM for optional authenticity scoring and fact-checking is similarly feasible. Modern LLM APIs allow us to build well-structured, controlled prompts and pipelines that analyze documents, generate probability estimates, and conduct basic fact comparison. This type of integration has become common in contemporary applications, making it a low-risk part of the development effort.
Decentralized identity (DID) integration is also technically achievable. Both Veridian and IAMX provide DID frameworks and APIs that can be incorporated directly into our authentication flow. By requiring users to connect an existing DID or create one through a supported provider, we ensure that all stored content is tied to verifiable digital identities without needing to build identity infrastructure from scratch.
The DID layer is essential for authorship attribution and multi-party agreement signing, and it fits naturally into the overall architecture.
From the perspective of team capability, we are well prepared to deliver the MVP. The back-end will be led by Jaromir Tesar, an experienced systems and backend engineer with a strong understanding of blockchain integrations and backend architecture. Orca will collaborate on the backend. Orca delivered several blockchain large-scale services processing thousands of transactions securely with the most famous being SnekX (https://snekx.io). He has a deep understanding of the Cardano technology.
Frontend development will be handled primarily by Kamil Hamerník. He has extensive frontend experience and are fully capable of contributing to backend tasks when needed. Together, the team has the technical breadth required to build the platform: backend services, blockchain integrations, decentralized storage, frontend interfaces, and LLM pipelines.
Given the maturity of the required components, the clarity of the architecture, and the capabilities of the team, the delivery of this project is realistic, achievable, and well within our technical reach.
Milestone Title
Architecture & Infrastructure Setup
Milestone Outputs
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
A published architecture document stored in the project repository.
A published report on selected components, especially decentralized storage, LLM and DID management solution.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
20000
Progress
10 %
Milestone Title
Backend Core (Timestamping, Storage, Cardano Integration)
Milestone Outputs
A functional backend capable of accepting document uploads, hashing content, storing files on decentralized storage network, and anchoring the resulting hash and metadata to the Cardano blockchain. Includes APIs for user identity association, data retrieval, and document verification.
Acceptance Criteria
Users must be able to submit data through API endpoints, generating a permanent record anchored on Cardano. The backend must correctly handle storage, hashing, metadata generation, and verification endpoints. The system must support at least basic performance requirements and properly manage errors and invalid submissions.
Evidence of Completion
Successful on-chain metadata transactions, test uploads verifiable on IPFS or equivalent storage, and a functioning documented API. GitHub commits and test cases must confirm the stability and reliability of the backend core.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
50000
Progress
40 %
Milestone Title
Frontend Application
Milestone Outputs
A fully functional frontend application that enables users to create accounts using a Cardano wallet, upload documents, review their timestamped records, and verify previously submitted content. The interface must be intuitive, responsive, and capable of guiding users with minimal technical background through the verification and signing process.
Acceptance Criteria
The frontend must successfully connect to backend APIs, enable smooth wallet authentication, show document submission forms, and display verification results. It must support content preview and list all user-created records with accurate metadata. UI/UX should follow the prepared Figma designs and pass usability testing.
Evidence of Completion
A publicly accessible URL hosting the working MVP frontend, populated with sample documents created during testing. Screenshots and GitHub commits must validate completed interfaces, including successful integration with the backend.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
45000
Progress
60 %
Milestone Title
LLM Authenticity & Fact-Checking Engine
Milestone Outputs
A modular AI engine capable of analyzing user-submitted content when explicitly requested. The system generates probabilistic assessments of human vs. AI authorship and performs initial fact-checking by comparing statements with trusted sources. The engine exposes APIs for generating and retrieving AI reports linked to stored documents.
Acceptance Criteria
The LLM engine must successfully accept text content or extracted text from uploaded files, produce structured analysis reports, and store them alongside document metadata when users opt in. Users must be able to trigger or skip AI analysis. The system must operate within defined cost and performance constraints.
Evidence of Completion
Test logs showing accurate LLM outputs, stored AI reports linked to sample documents, and working frontend integration enabling users to request analysis. Documentation describing model usage and limitations must be available.
Delivery Month
1
Cost
25000
Progress
70 %
Milestone Title
DID Integration & Agreements
Milestone Outputs
Full integration with a decentralized identity provider. Users can authenticate with DID and sign documents or agreements with their identity. The system supports multi-party agreements, allowing each participant to sign and timestamp the shared content. DID bindings must be persistent and verifiable in both backend and frontend interfaces.
Acceptance Criteria
Users must be able to authenticate via DID, sign agreements, and view all associated signatures. Multi-party workflows must support at least two signers and allow each to review and approve documents. Verification endpoints must reliably return identity and timestamp details for each signature.
Evidence of Completion
Completed DID login flows demonstrated through staged user accounts, signed multi-party agreements stored on decentralized storage and anchored on Cardano, and test reports confirming that DID signatures are correctly bound to blockchain metadata. GitHub commits and documentation must be updated accordingly.
Delivery Month
2
Cost
25000
Progress
90 %
Milestone Title
Testing, Deployment, Marketing
Milestone Outputs
Full testing suite covering backend, frontend, DID integration, and LLM components. Deployment of the MVP to production, including domain setup, server provisioning, monitoring, etc. Additionally, an initial marketing package.
Acceptance Criteria
Evidence of Completion
Delivery Month
1
Cost
35000
Progress
100 %
Please provide a cost breakdown of the proposed work and resources
Total 200,000 ADA
How does the cost of the project represent value for the Cardano ecosystem?
The cost of this project represents strong value for the Cardano ecosystem because it delivers a practical, widely applicable use case that directly showcases some of Cardano’s most distinctive capabilities: decentralized identity, metadata, and trust-enabling infrastructure. For a relatively modest budget, we are creating a working product that drives real on-chain activity, incentivizes DID adoption, and provides a public-good service that is useful for individuals, organizations, and AI systems that require verifiable data.
This project will actively generate metadata transactions, identity-anchored interactions, and signed multi-party agreements—each of which increases Cardano’s real-world usage and visibility. It also demonstrates Cardano’s strengths in an area that has global relevance: establishing authenticity and trust in an environment increasingly filled with AI-generated or manipulated content. By building a platform that makes these capabilities accessible to everyday users, without requiring deep blockchain knowledge, we help expand Cardano’s user base beyond crypto-native audiences.
Furthermore, the project is designed to serve as a foundational trust layer for AI agents and automated systems. This positions Cardano not merely as a settlement layer, but as a critical verification layer for the emerging AI-driven information economy. Few blockchain ecosystems currently offer this, and Cardano has the ideal architecture to support it.
For the requested budget, the ecosystem receives a production-ready application, open verification endpoints, reusable identity workflows, and a clear demonstration of Cardano’s potential to solve real societal problems. This is a high-impact, high-leverage investment that strengthens Cardano’s reputation, increases on-chain utility, and lays the groundwork for further innovation and integrations in identity, governance, and AI-assisted trust systems.
I confirm that evidence of prior research, whitepaper, design, or proof-of-concept is provided.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes ecosystem research and uses the findings to either (a) justify its uniqueness over existing solutions or (b) demonstrate the value of its novel approach.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal demonstrates technical capability via verifiable in-house talent or a confirmed development partner (GitHub, LinkedIn, portfolio, etc.)
Yes
I confirm that the proposer and all team members are in good standing with prior Catalyst projects.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal clearly defines the problem and the value of the on-chain utility.
Yes
I confirm that the primary goal of the proposal is a working prototype deployed on at least a Cardano testnet.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal outlines a credible and clear technical plan and architecture.
Yes
I confirm that the budget and timeline (≤ 12 months) are realistic for the proposed work.
Yes
I confirm that the proposal includes a community engagement and feedback plan to amplify prototype adoption with the Cardano ecosystem.
Yes
I confirm that the budget is for future development only; excludes retroactive funding, incentives, giveaways, re-granting, or sub-treasuries.
Yes
I Agree
Yes
Jaromir Tesar serves as the lead backend engineer, system architect, and coordinator. He is responsible for designing and implementing the core application logic, blockchain interactions, metadata handling, decentralized storage integration, and the overall security and reliability of the platform.
Another backed developer is Orca. He delivered several blockchain large-scale services processing thousands of transactions securely with the most famous being SnekX.
Orca has deep understanding of the Cardano technology, native tokens, utxo and blockchain scraping. He managed various customized projects involving native token operations, including token staking, token locking, NFT minting, and blockchain snapshots. Projects exclusively developed by Orca include hodlada.io.
Kamil Hamerník is an experienced frontend developer who also supports backend work where needed. He focuses on creating a clean, intuitive, and user-friendly interface while ensuring seamless integration with backend services, identity systems, and storage layers.