Prove you wrote the code first
Timestamp your codebase and its revision history on the Bitcoin blockchain. Establish independent, court-ready proof of authorship and integrity for your software - without publishing a single line.
Code is easy to copy and hard to attribute
Software is among the most valuable and most portable assets a team creates. A repository can be cloned, a commit history rewritten, and a timestamp forged in seconds. When two parties both claim to have written the same code, the question a court asks is simple: who can prove it existed, in their hands, first?
Copyright protects original code automatically the moment it is written, but automatic protection is not the same as evidence. Registration is slow and territorial, internal Git timestamps are trivially editable, and a private backup only proves what you told yourself. None of these establish an independent record that a third party can trust.
Bernstein closes that gap. It anchors a cryptographic fingerprint of your code to a public blockchain, creating a permanent, independently verifiable record of what existed and when - the missing evidentiary layer beneath copyright, patents, and contracts.
Developers have long relied on the 'poor man's copyright': mailing yourself a copy of the code, or keeping a private Git history. Neither proves anything to a third party - a postmark can be faked and a repository can be rewritten. A public-blockchain timestamp is different in kind: it is a record no single party controls and no one can backdate.
The gap matters most where the stakes are highest. In the United States, you must register a copyright before you can sue for infringement (17 U.S.C. Section 411(a)), and registration is slow and territorial. And since WIPO PROOF, the institutional digital-timestamp service, was discontinued in February 2022, private, standards-based timestamping is what remains - a dated blockchain proof is the evidence layer beneath the rights you assert.
Why authorship is hard to prove
Editable histories
Commit dates, author fields, and tags in a Git history can all be rewritten. On their own, they prove nothing to an outside party.
Concurrent claims
Contractors, employees, and open-source contributors all touch the same files. When ownership is contested, who wrote it first becomes your word against theirs.
Proof without disclosure
Establishing authorship usually means handing your source to a notary or registry. You need evidence that does not require exposing the code itself.
Timing matters
Whether defending copyright, preparing a patent, or entering a licensing deal, the value of your proof depends on showing a precise, trusted date of creation.
How blockchain timestamping proves code authorship
When you certify a codebase with Bernstein, your files are hashed locally into a 256-bit cryptographic fingerprint. This fingerprint is unique to the exact content: change a single character in one file and the fingerprint changes completely. The hash cannot be reversed, so it reveals nothing about the code it represents.
That fingerprint is anchored in a Bitcoin blockchain transaction. Because the blockchain is a public, immutable, globally distributed ledger, the record of your fingerprint - and the moment it was written - cannot be altered or backdated by anyone, including Bernstein.
The result is proof that is independently verifiable. Any third party - a court, opposing counsel, a licensee - can confirm that your exact code existed at that timestamp, without ever seeing the code. Bernstein's zero-knowledge architecture means your source never leaves your control.
Certify a code history, not just a snapshot
Software is not a single file frozen in time - it is a living history of changes. Bernstein certificates are designed to mirror that reality. Each new certification interlinks with the previous one, so you can prove not only that code existed, but how it evolved.
Timestamp every version
Certify each release, milestone, or build. Every snapshot gets its own immutable fingerprint and date.
An interlinked chain
Certificates reference one another, forming a verifiable chain that maps to your commit and release history over time.
Tamper-evident by design
Because the fingerprint is derived from the content itself, any later change to the code is immediately detectable against the record.
Prove the evolution
Demonstrate the sequence in which features and modules were authored - a durable, ordered record of who built what, and when.
When proof of code authorship matters
Pre-patent software protection
Patenting software is slow, expensive, and territorial. Before you file - or if you never intend to - a blockchain timestamp establishes that your implementation existed on a specific date. It documents your invention date and protects the work during the months a patent takes to prosecute.
Open-source authorship proof
Publishing under an open-source licence gives away the right to copy, not the fact that you authored the work. A Bernstein certificate provides independent proof that you created the code before it was released, strengthening attribution and licence-enforcement claims.
Ownership and IP disputes
Contractor hand-offs, co-founder splits, and employee departures routinely raise the question of who owns which code. Timestamped certificates give you an objective, third-party-verifiable record to resolve competing claims without relying on editable internal logs.
What you can certify
Any part of your software, and the record of how it was built.
How it works
- 1Add your repository, release, or files to a project - everything is hashed locally in your browser before anything is uploaded.
- 2Bernstein anchors the fingerprint to the Bitcoin blockchain, creating a permanent, timestamped record of your code.
- 3Certify new versions as your codebase evolves, building an interlinked chain that mirrors your revision history.
- 4Receive a legal-grade certificate you can verify independently and produce as evidence whenever authorship is questioned.
Certification for developer workflows
Certifying code by hand is only part of the story. Teams increasingly want to timestamp automatically - from a CI/CD pipeline, a commit hook, or a build step - so that proof is created as part of how they already work.
Programmatic certification through an API, SDK, CLI, and MCP integration is in active development and currently available in a closed beta. Access is granted case by case while the interfaces stabilise.
If you want to certify code as part of an automated workflow, talk to our team about the beta - we will help you find the right approach for your pipeline.
Built for the way courts treat blockchain evidence
Courts are increasingly recognising blockchain timestamps as evidence. No certificate guarantees an outcome, and a court weighs evidence case by case - but the direction of travel across major jurisdictions is clear, and it runs toward the kind of proof Bernstein produces.
In March 2025, the Tribunal Judiciaire de Marseille accepted a SHA-256 hash anchored on a public blockchain as proof of copyright anteriority - a European first, and directly on point for code authorship. The court treated the blockchain record as more reliable than a traditional bailiff's certification date.
Years earlier, in June 2018, the Hangzhou Internet Court became the first court anywhere to admit blockchain-stored evidence, in a copyright dispute - the ruling that opened judicial recognition of blockchain proof worldwide.
Across the European Union, Article 41 of the eIDAS Regulation (No. 910/2014) gives a qualified electronic timestamp a legal presumption of accuracy in all 27 member states. Bernstein pairs its Bitcoin anchor with a qualified EU timestamp, so your proof rests on both a public ledger and a recognised legal framework.
Bernstein is built for admissibility. It does not promise that any given court will accept your evidence - that remains a judgment each court makes on the facts - but it is engineered to give you the strongest, most independently verifiable record possible.
Frequently asked questions
No. A commit date, author name, and tag are ordinary fields in your repository - anyone with the history can rewrite them in seconds, so on their own they prove nothing to an outside party. A public-blockchain anchor cannot be edited or backdated by anyone, including Bernstein, which is what gives it evidentiary weight.
No. Your files are hashed locally into a 256-bit fingerprint before anything leaves your machine, and only that fingerprint is anchored on the blockchain. The hash cannot be reversed, so it reveals nothing about your code. Bernstein's zero-knowledge architecture means we never receive, store, or see your source.
No. Copyright protects your code automatically, and in the United States you must still register a work before you can sue for infringement under 17 U.S.C. Section 411(a). A blockchain timestamp is the evidence layer beneath that - it proves what existed and when, complementing registration rather than replacing it.
Yes. Each certification interlinks with the previous one, forming a verifiable chain that mirrors your commit and release history. Instead of a single frozen snapshot, you build an ordered, tamper-evident record of how your codebase evolved over time - showing which features and modules were authored, and when.