Notarizing On a Blockchain via Apostille
Notarizing has been a crucial part of human life since roughly about BC2500. Having approval of ownership or rights to creative property, assets or documents from an authority of strong establishment instills confidence amongst the various parties involved in a trade. Traditionally notarization has been conducted by state entities. Since the government is often the most powerful player in any given society, having its stamp over a document is equivalent to having the approval of the highest authority in the land. If a document that is notarized comes under scrutiny, so does the government.
Notarizing through traditional means comes with its own share of headache and inefficiencies. For example, the first notary of the American colonies was put out of office for forgery. Notarizing has always had a certain amount of dependence on humans and therefore brings along inefficiencies in the form of resource waste (time and money) and human error. In an age of globalization and fast moving trade and finance this can convert to irrevocable damages for the average person. One cannot help but ponder over why we as a society choose to use old methods in light of the modern methods made available to us through the power of the blockchain. Going digital helps cut down costs, brings down resource requirements and opens a number of doors for countless people from all sections of society around the world.
Staying away from going digital with notarizations has massive impact on the global economy, especially in emerging markets. In an economy like India’s, notarizations can often be a long and tenuous process. The people that are kept in charge of notarizing can often demand unethical/gross amounts of payment for faster notarization. In cases where a notary is expected to move quick and deliver results so that the individual can make a deal happen or provide necessary documents to required entities, this need to save on time is often exploited by those in power. Many individuals that are often illiterate fall prey to such heinous demands and are left with no choices but to pay their way through.
Take another economy — China. A global leader in economic growth, industrial production and, unsurprisingly, counterfeiting. Counterfeiters in China have replicated entire brand product lines knowing that Western intrusion into the local economy in a hunt for such criminals is often rare or little. Or, much rather not pursued due to the heavy amount of red tape involved in the process. Even investment banks have been “counterfeited” with fake entities set up with the intent of stealing money through leveraging the trust the average consumer has in the services provided by the real firm. This hurts companies investing billions of dollars in R&D to bring the finest services to their consumers. Additionally, the brand’s reputation takes a hit with bad products bought with the belief that it comes from the rightful supplier/brand. These issues are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the kind of problems a digital notary can help solve. From helping creative individuls attain copyright authority over their products to ensuring Medicare fraud is kept minimal — a digital notary system that is global and used by all with the highest levels of confidence can not only help accelerate the growth of the economy but also improve the lives of countless individuals around the world.
The blockchain revolutionized how mankind does transactions in 2008. Born as a technological solution, it gained popularity as a response to the recession and eventual bailout of banks that had ruined existing systems through reckless trading in pursuit of greed. It questioned the fundamentals of the way human society functioned through its ability to link markets, enhance transparency in operations and ensure capital mobility to any corner of the world.
Enterprises such as Silk Road showed the world that new economies in off-regulated markets could function and interact with actors from any part of the world through a financial system that required no intermediary. Banks were stumped for the first few years as they waited upon this revolution of sorts to die out and yet, here we are — with over 1.5 billion dollars invested directly into blockchain related enterprises. Banks have tried making copycat models with their own private blockchains while forgetting the very fundamentals of how such systems work. Bringing the notary to the blockchain can have similar effects too. All of a sudden we could remove the human element of error and replace it with transparency, quicker sharing of data and world-wide accessibility.
Since no manual labour is directly employed, such systems could further bring down the cost of notarization by an extreme level and help people around the globe gain their due rights. Furthermore, society as a whole could see its transformative effects through the drastic reduction in fraud, increase in transparency and general trust that follows along with it. Countless entities have tried with this ideological perception and undying desire to bring in disruption to the way mankind notarizes. And yet, here we stand with no single entity enforcing a solution that works at scale.
Take for instance the Bitcoin blockchain. It comes with its own inherent flaws. To begin with, property changes hands, and it changes hands often in an ever connected global market built on trade and finance. Assets are to be moved often through secure environments. This means repeated notarization of the same asset. In Bitcoin, this happens through “coloring” a coin or naming a Satoshi a particular asset, timestamping it with the hash (of the file ) — and adding it to the ledger.
The blockchain platform NEM in comparison, is able to bring forth a number of solutions businesses would require for their optimal functioning as it was built from the ground up with the intent of deploying as a 2nd generation blockchain solution. With key features such as messaging, Namespaces (domains) — and subdomains, multi-user, multiphase and multisignature contracts, businesses will be able to function with ease while transitioning towards a blockchain based solution.
Consider a business conglomerate with multiple outlets operating in various parts of the world. NEM’s Apostille would be able to help the conglomerate register with a namespace under its brand’s name to make claims and show ownership on a blockchain that can be seen and verified by trusted parties anywhere in the world. Its employees can now interact with this account and receive income from it to show how they are involved with the organization. Furthermore, any research and development done by the organization can be notarized by the brand on the blockchain. This can effectively help it garner trust from stakeholders.
In an age and time where businesses fight vehemently for intellectual property rights, blockchain based solutions help businesses circumvent global requirements for registrations or the hassles and delays involved in being the first one to register a patent or claim ownership. Additionally, since the barrier to register such documents is drastically reduced, it helps smaller enterprises or startups fight against existing corporate authorities. Consider the fact that the conglomerate could further register subdomains for each of its local branches or divisions within the organization. This will help an interested party trace the branch or the division towards the larger conglomerate and garner more trust from investors and stakeholders alike. Furthermore, product tags could be directly linked to the main accounts of the brand for an average individual to verify. All that counterfeiting that happens in China? Simple solution. Have the consumer scan the code and look it up on a verifiable blockchain directly linked to the brand via a registered and published namespace. Problem solved. Any counterfeiter trying to fake a blockchain certificate would be leaving behind an unmistakable digital footprint pointing directly to them that they were committing a crime.
The thing about such a solution is that it does not hold potential only to solve problems in government verification of personal documents but also for complete disruption of entire sectors. Medicare fraud, fake education degrees, illicit trade and finance — the opportunities are boundless. NEM’s Apostille breaks down walls and entirely removes barriers from having a verifiable system that enables the common man to claim ownership from any corner of the world. Bitcoin brought the world’s economies together by allowing the transaction of tokens of value beyond government interference. NEM’s Apostille will do the same for the transfer of ownership and validation of documents, again, on the blockchain.
