Intro

Welcome to this self-paced workshop about notarization. Before jumping into the matter, what does it actually mean to notarize a document? Usually a notary places a seal or stamp on a document, demonstrating that he or she has witnessed the signing of the document. This verfication of witness is needed to give them legal weight by independently verifying important documents. For example, this would be the case for a couple signing a large mortgage contract that is used to buy a house.

tip

Read up the definition of notarization in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Following this tutorial, you are first going to learn how to time-stamp a digital document. A time-stamp is a proof that a specific file existed at a certain point in time. Such a service is not new, but forms the foundation of our solution. We will learn that every file has a digital fingerprint that is many times smaller than the document itself. That becomes useful, because we will save that fingerprint in the blockchain ledger. We do not stop at this simple process, but will add features that enable multiple people to interact with the document. Like in the real-world use case of notarization!

note

The document you want to notarize can be any digital file. Examples of documents that get notarized between two or more parties are:

• lease agreement: tenant and landlord
• license agreement: author and publisher
• service level agreement: provider and consumer
• intellectual property rights: inventor(s)