Blockchain, Timestamps and Proof of Existence Could Transform Online Publishing

Could “proof of existence”, a protocol made possible by blockchain technology, get rid of the fake news and imposter websites which litter the world wide web?

BTC Media, likely the largest blockchain publisher alongside CoinDesk, thinks so. The publication began timestamping its curated articles on June 19 with Po.et’s Bitcoin blockchain-based ‘proof of existence’ protocol. The effort is meant to ensure the publisher’s online content is properly attributed, licensed and that freelancers retain control over their intellectual property. Po.et consists of three layers: a base-layer, time stamping layer, and a layer that meta-dates content into the blockchain.

“Once content is on a ledger, you can do more than you were able to do beforehand,” says Pat Riley, Bitcoin Magazine’s Head of Product, and Co-Founder of Po.et. “You can build out equity ownership automatically without trusted third parties and their fees. If an editor and writer are working on a piece together, they could crypto-split the equity in an automated manner.”

BTC Media found that after it posted an article on one of its online publications (Bitcoin Magazine, Distributed, LTB Network and Devsub), it would spread across the internet without attribution.This took away from the publication’s advertising revenue and, in its view, contributed to the spread of misinformation.

“One of the main services we provide to our readers is trust,” says Mr. Riley. “A lack of trust is a huge problem in the news industry right now. Who has legitimate information? Who is standing by their facts? Who has proper journalistic practices? Stamping our articles and embedding them in the history of what we are covering through blockchain technology delivers the trust our readers expect.”

To solve the problem, the publisher turned to proof of existence to verify the existence of digital files – in this case, its online content –  with timestamped blockchain transactions. The publisher’s goal is to bring the media, the publishing industry, and its articles into the internet of value.

“Right now, [our articles] exist in silos or decentralized worlds whereas increasingly apps are acting more peer-to-peer than the database-siloed world we know,” says Mr. Riley.

With the addition of a marketplace on top of Po.et, BTC Media believes publications can begin placing bounties out for certain articles the same way development teams put bug bounties out for code. “Po.et allows a writer to print out a series of ten articles they are most interested in and post it on the marketplace for resale,” describes Mr. Riley. “They can search topics and have pre-written content there ready [to choose from]. Instead of e-mails going back and forth, they can license it, and depending on the license they can reuse the content.”

For instance, Bitcoin Magazine published an article written by Vitalik Buterin when he was initially thinking through multi-signature and how Ethereum could work.

“It’s the first time the term ‘multi-sig’ was used in an article,” Mr. Riley recalls of the article, which detailed the concept of bitcoin transactions requiring more than one key (read: password) for authorization.

“It is constantly referred to back in slides and presentations and white papers, and so it is a high-ranking link,” says Mr. Riley. “If they were attributing it to Po.et on their site, the total cost of advertising redirect to their site or blog could be paid out over time.”

He adds: “While smart contracts are promising and indeed the future, we believe this basic utility –  proof of existence – has been overlooked.”