WordProof Timestamp Version 1.0 Is Now Live!

Berlin, June 22nd, 2019 — WordProof Timestamp Version 1.0

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WordProof brings the benefits of blockchain to the world of content.

6 min readJun 22, 2019

We are thrilled to announce that WordProof Timestamp 1.0 is now available in the WordPress plugin repository, installable from millions of WordPress dashboards around the world. WordProof Timestamp is an open source plugin to timestamp your WordPress content on the blockchain. No fees, no middleman and everything in a matter of seconds.

WordProof Timestamp explained in 2 minutes!

V1.0 Launched at world’s largest WordPress event: WordCamp Europe

WordProof Timestamp V1.0 became available at the world’s largest WordPress conference, WordCamp Europe, where Founder Sebastiaan van der Lans just gave a keynote for 2,500 WordPress developers. They come from more than 97 different countries representing many WordPress agencies from around the globe. Among the other speakers on the mainstage of WordCamp Europe was WordPress’ founder Matt Mullenweg.

First reactions from the WordPress community are great:

“This is the first real-life application with the blockchain that actually makes sense to me.” —
Remkus de Vries, Partner Manager at Yoast.com
“This is one of the coolest things that I’ve seen [on WordPress and Blockchain] so far.” — Matt Mullenweg, Founder of WordPress

How to use WordProof Timestamp?

Install the plugin “WordProof Timestamp” from your WordPress dashboard
Walk through the user-friendly Setup Wizard
Timestamp your first article on the blockchain

What will I need to start stamping with WordProof?

To timestamp your content, you need a blockchain account and a wallet.

Account — WordProof Timestamp connects with the EOS and Telos blockchain. Most blockchains work with free keys. EOS.IO accounts are a bit different, as it costs a bit of RAM to open an account.
Wallet — You need a wallet to transfer tokens AND to sign actions, such as a Timestamp. A popular wallet for EOS.IO is Scatter; it’s both free and open source.

The built-in 3-step setup wizard in the WordProof Timestamp plugin will guide you through the account creation and configuration of the wallet. Don’t worry, it’s a matter of minutes to get you started!

Introducing WORD — The digital postage stamp

When we first launched the test version of WordProof Timestamp, we noticed that people timestamped empty pages, test content and tens of times the same page in a short time frame. All these transactions remain in the blockchain forever and need to be processed by nodes in the network.

We felt as if we were littering the network, even though it was just a few transactions. What would happen if we scale to 100,000 users? How many “pointless” timestamps would have been placed with WordProof Timestamp?

So, both as an anti-SPAM measurement and to make sure people value their timestamps, we are introducing WORD — The digital postage stamp.

What does 1 WORD represent?

WORD is a utility ‘token’ you need to Timestamp your WordPress content. Think of 1 WORD as 1 regular postage stamp. You need 1 WORD stamp to publish one post or page to the blockchain.

One Timestamp ‘costs’ you 1 WORD, but you get 1 WORD back for every timestamp you place, up to 5 per day. In other words: you can timestamp 5 pieces of content per day, without ‘paying’ anything. To get you started with protecting your content on the blockchain, you can claim your first 100 WORD immediately, without any cost.

Later this year, we’ll publish more about the WORD economics and utility.

“The ability to prove your integrity should be a human right. WordProof strives to make and keep Timestamping as inclusive as possible!”
— Sebastiaan van der Lans, founder WordProof.

TL;DR: WORD is, for now, an anti SPAM measurement. However, it also makes sure people think about the consequence of publishing something to the blockchain: nodes need to process it and it stays there forever.

Later, WORD might have additional utility. Some examples:

Storing hashes on-chain;
Storing your content and documents on-chain;
Creating unique and transferrable content certificates with NFT’s.

Claim your 100 WORD in the WORD portal.

WordProof Timestamp Premium vs. Free

With the free and open source WordProof Timestamp plugin, as presented in the WordPress plugin repository, you can create and set up a wallet, and timestamp your content for free in minutes.

You can timestamp your new content or new versions of your content. Your visitor will see a Timestamp Certificate on the front-end with the newest timestamp for this piece of content.

The Premium version adds one vital element:

The ability to timestamp revisions of your content and the possibility for your visitors to scroll through those timestamped revisions.

Imagine a journalist or researcher, linking to a specific revision of an article instead of linking to the generic article which could have been changed.

Timestamp Certificates provide:

Information about the current piece of content;
A link to the blockchain transaction proving your content’s authenticity;
A link to a tool to check if the timestamp is valid / not tampered with. Your visitor can do his/her due diligence, which increases trust.

Imagine a world where every visitor could do their due diligence. From that moment organizations and publishers become something people can trust on a level that isn’t possible today.

How to learn Blockchain as a WordPress Developer?

WordProof Timestamp works with the innovative open-source EOS.IO blockchain software. Are you a WordPress developer willing to learn about Blockchain Development? We’ve got you covered!

WordProof Timestamp V1.0 comes with free access to an EOS.IO developers course, produced by Cypherglass. It contains 63 lectures with, in total, 7.5 hours of on-demand video and code examples to get you started as a blockchain developer. In the course, you construct an application with a C++ EOS smart contract and a ReactJS/Redux frontend.

Why for free? Both WordProof and Cypherglass aim to onboard more developers to the blockchain ecosystem to work towards a 100% Open Source world!

Install the WordProof Timestamp plug-in and start enrolling yourself for free, now.

Features coming to WordProof soon

WordProof Automatic Time-stamping
WordProof for platforms other than WordPress
WordProof Stand-alone version with API
On-chain content certificates (NFT)

*More features will be announced in the near future.

A Special WORD of Thanks To …

50+ Testers of the WordProof Timestamp Proof of Concept. They’ll receive the WordProof Timestamp Premium plugin for free.
Team WordProof: Jelle van der Schoot (Product), Marijn Bent (Development).
WordProof Partners: Frank van Dalen, Rhett Oudkerk Pool & Marcel Knippen.
The team of WordPress agency ‘Van Ons’: Jesse Alaerds (developer), Maurice (developer), Tristan (CTO) & Daniel (UX) for building WordProof’s proof of concept and continuous support on UX.
Telos Community, as initiated by Douglas Horn, for supporting and initially funding WordProof with a Worker Proposal (we wrote history there, with this highly inclusive way of open source funding).
To Danny van Kooten, Joost de Valk, and Remkus de Vries, for sharing their extensive knowledge in running WordPress premium plugin businesses.
Special thanks to Chris Dawe & team Effect.AI, Jan Smit, Julius Brenninkmeijer, Annelieke Hoenderkamp, Jeroen Dral (illustrations and animation), Boudewijn Mijnlieff (logo)!
Media coverage: Tim Osborn, Max dApp, Brandon Parker & The EOS Writer for being the first platform stamping all their content.
Everything EOS: Rob Finch, Zack Gall & Pete Kaey for offering the WordPress community their EOS.IO Dev Course for free, and for extensively covering WordProof in their longest running podcast in the EOS.IO ecosystem.

Sebastiaan van der Lans
Founder WordProof.io

Join the Timestamp Movement!

If you are as enthusiast about Timestamping as we at WordProof are, join the Timestamp Movement:

Organize a WordPress Meetup about Timestamping (reach out to us, we could provide you with slides and jump on a call to help you);
Present at your agency about Timestamping with WordProof (use this video and Sebastiaan’s slides);
Convince your customer to Timestamp valuable content from today;
Start stamping yourself, today!