Zero-upload IP protection for creatives. Your files stay on your device. Your proof lives on the blockchain forever. Built for designers, by designers.
Proving that you created a design first often turns into a messy 'he-said-she-said'. You either have to deal with slow, outdated copyright paperwork, legacy systems, or you try to timestamp it by uploading it somewhere online, which is a massive legal disaster if you're working on unreleased products or under an NDA.
Arkiv solves this instantly. It’s a zero-upload digital notary built specifically for visual creators.
Unlike other IP platforms that are bloated with features, Arkiv aims to keep things simple, fast, and fairly priced so you, as a creative, can get back to doing what you do best, whilst having peace of mind that you have secured undeniable proof of your work, being yours, at an exact moment in time.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
Drop any design file into Arkiv. Instead of uploading your file to our servers (like other IP registries can do), Arkiv calculates a mathematical fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash) entirely locally in your browser. We then anchor that unique fingerprint to the Base blockchain with an immutable timestamp. Your actual pixels never leave your machine. You keep the original file, and we give you an undeniable, un-hackable receipt.
The platform features:
🔒 Zero-Upload Privacy - Your files never touch our servers. It's 100% NDA-compliant. 👤 Invisible Web3 - Powered by Privy. No seed phrases, gas fees, or complex crypto wallets to manage. Just log in securely with Google or Email. 📜 Human-Readable Certificates - Instantly export a professional PDF Certificate of Provenance that clients and lawyers can actually understand. ✅ One-Click Public Verifier - If a dispute arises, anyone can verify the authenticity of a file by dropping it into our verifier to independently confirm the math against the public ledger.
A few ways creatives are using it:
Freelancers use it to certify their concepts and pitch decks before hitting send. It secures your ideas so clients can't take your concepts and execute them with a cheaper agency.
Agencies use it at the final handoff to create a definitive timestamp of the exact, byte-for-byte deliverables provided at the end of a contract.
Visual Creators use it to certify their work minutes before posting to X, Dribbble, or Behance, mathematically securing their intellectual property before the internet gets its hands on it.
This is a great question, and it actually gets to the absolute core of why I built Arkiv this way.
The short answer is: It is mathematically and computationally impossible.
Here's how the tech prevents anyone from faking a file or backdating a timestamp:
The Avalanche Effect: We use SHA-256 hashing. If a copycat tries to subtly modify a file to match your original, even changing a single pixel or a single byte of code completely scrambles the hash. There’s no way to 'tweak' a file to force it to match an older hash.
One-Way Street: A hash is a digital fingerprint, not a zipped file. You can't reverse-engineer it to figure out what the original file looked like.
The Clock Only Moves Forward: The blockchain ledger (Base/Ethereum) is immutable. When you write a hash to the chain, it gets stamped with the network’s exact, decentralized time. A plagiarist can only write their file's hash to today's block. They can't go back in time and insert their work into a block mined six months ago.
Essentially, your timestamp is a permanent, unalterable receipt.
@dayal_punjabi And just to follow up Dayal. In this age of blatant plagiarism, and AI training models, there's never been a stronger argument to secure your assets in one of the strongest ways possible.
Files staying on device with only the cryptographic proof on-chain is a sensible trust boundary. The upload model has burned too many creatives when platforms change terms or shut down.
The piece I would think through: how does the proof surface during an actual dispute? A designer winning a legal argument needs to produce something a lawyer can understand without explaining blockchain concepts. Curious if you have mapped the dispute workflow end to end.
You've zeroed in on exactly the scenario we spent the most time optimising for. Early on we knew handing a lawyer or a client a raw transaction hash and/or a link to a block explorer was a complete non-starter.
Our dispute workflow is designed to be entirely 'Web3-invisible' for the person verifying the claim.
1. The Human-Readable Certificate: When you certify a file on Arkiv, we generate a beautifully formatted, PDF 'Certificate of Provenance'. It is designed to look like a traditional legal document, not a crypto receipt. 2. The QR Code Bridge: Every certificate features a prominent QR code along with plain-English details (timestamp, exact file signature, owner address). 3. The Dispute Moment: When a dispute arises, the creator simply emails or prints this PDF. The opposing party, lawyer, or platform moderator doesn't need to understand cryptography or wallets. They just scan the QR code with their smartphone camera. 4. Instant, Independent Verification: That scan directs them straight to the independent ledger (BaseScan), unequivocally displaying the immutable, time-stamped proof that the creator possessed that exact mathematical fingerprint at that exact time.
We view the blockchain purely as the backend engine. The PDF certificate (more methods coming soon), and the QR code are the UI that makes proof actually usable in the real world to non-tech people.
Replies
Arkiv
Hey PH! 👋
I'm Marc, creator of Arkiv.
Proving that you created a design first often turns into a messy 'he-said-she-said'. You either have to deal with slow, outdated copyright paperwork, legacy systems, or you try to timestamp it by uploading it somewhere online, which is a massive legal disaster if you're working on unreleased products or under an NDA.
Arkiv solves this instantly. It’s a zero-upload digital notary built specifically for visual creators.
Unlike other IP platforms that are bloated with features, Arkiv aims to keep things simple, fast, and fairly priced so you, as a creative, can get back to doing what you do best, whilst having peace of mind that you have secured undeniable proof of your work, being yours, at an exact moment in time.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
Drop any design file into Arkiv. Instead of uploading your file to our servers (like other IP registries can do), Arkiv calculates a mathematical fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash) entirely locally in your browser. We then anchor that unique fingerprint to the Base blockchain with an immutable timestamp. Your actual pixels never leave your machine. You keep the original file, and we give you an undeniable, un-hackable receipt.
The platform features:
🔒 Zero-Upload Privacy - Your files never touch our servers. It's 100% NDA-compliant.
👤 Invisible Web3 - Powered by Privy. No seed phrases, gas fees, or complex crypto wallets to manage. Just log in securely with Google or Email.
📜 Human-Readable Certificates - Instantly export a professional PDF Certificate of Provenance that clients and lawyers can actually understand.
✅ One-Click Public Verifier - If a dispute arises, anyone can verify the authenticity of a file by dropping it into our verifier to independently confirm the math against the public ledger.
A few ways creatives are using it:
Freelancers use it to certify their concepts and pitch decks before hitting send. It secures your ideas so clients can't take your concepts and execute them with a cheaper agency.
Agencies use it at the final handoff to create a definitive timestamp of the exact, byte-for-byte deliverables provided at the end of a contract.
Visual Creators use it to certify their work minutes before posting to X, Dribbble, or Behance, mathematically securing their intellectual property before the internet gets its hands on it.
You can check out Arkiv here - https://arkived.io/
Your first asset certification is completely Free! Try it out with one of your design assets.
Let us know if you have any feedback or questions in the comments? 🚀
Thanks,
Marc
@mrcndrw How tamper-proof is the hash against someone trying to reverse-engineer or fake a file to match an older timestamp?
Arkiv
@dayal_punjabi Hey Dayal,
This is a great question, and it actually gets to the absolute core of why I built Arkiv this way.
The short answer is: It is mathematically and computationally impossible.
Here's how the tech prevents anyone from faking a file or backdating a timestamp:
The Avalanche Effect: We use SHA-256 hashing. If a copycat tries to subtly modify a file to match your original, even changing a single pixel or a single byte of code completely scrambles the hash. There’s no way to 'tweak' a file to force it to match an older hash.
One-Way Street: A hash is a digital fingerprint, not a zipped file. You can't reverse-engineer it to figure out what the original file looked like.
The Clock Only Moves Forward: The blockchain ledger (Base/Ethereum) is immutable. When you write a hash to the chain, it gets stamped with the network’s exact, decentralized time. A plagiarist can only write their file's hash to today's block. They can't go back in time and insert their work into a block mined six months ago.
Essentially, your timestamp is a permanent, unalterable receipt.
Hope that helps?
Cheers,
Marc
Arkiv
@dayal_punjabi And just to follow up Dayal. In this age of blatant plagiarism, and AI training models, there's never been a stronger argument to secure your assets in one of the strongest ways possible.
This is a great resource for further information too - https://hyscaler.com/insights/blockchain-in-intellectual-property/
Files staying on device with only the cryptographic proof on-chain is a sensible trust boundary. The upload model has burned too many creatives when platforms change terms or shut down.
The piece I would think through: how does the proof surface during an actual dispute? A designer winning a legal argument needs to produce something a lawyer can understand without explaining blockchain concepts. Curious if you have mapped the dispute workflow end to end.
Arkiv
@pratikraj Thanks for raising this Pratik.
You've zeroed in on exactly the scenario we spent the most time optimising for. Early on we knew handing a lawyer or a client a raw transaction hash and/or a link to a block explorer was a complete non-starter.
Our dispute workflow is designed to be entirely 'Web3-invisible' for the person verifying the claim.
1. The Human-Readable Certificate: When you certify a file on Arkiv, we generate a beautifully formatted, PDF 'Certificate of Provenance'. It is designed to look like a traditional legal document, not a crypto receipt.
2. The QR Code Bridge: Every certificate features a prominent QR code along with plain-English details (timestamp, exact file signature, owner address).
3. The Dispute Moment: When a dispute arises, the creator simply emails or prints this PDF. The opposing party, lawyer, or platform moderator doesn't need to understand cryptography or wallets. They just scan the QR code with their smartphone camera.
4. Instant, Independent Verification: That scan directs them straight to the independent ledger (BaseScan), unequivocally displaying the immutable, time-stamped proof that the creator possessed that exact mathematical fingerprint at that exact time.
We view the blockchain purely as the backend engine. The PDF certificate (more methods coming soon), and the QR code are the UI that makes proof actually usable in the real world to non-tech people.
Hope that helps?
Cheers,
Marc