The language of a trustworthy art record.
Provenance, attestation, anchoring — the ideas behind Attesian in plain language. Each term links to a short, honest explanation of what it means and how it works here.
Provenance
The documented history of an artwork's origin, ownership, and custody over time.
Certificate of authenticity
A signed, verifiable snapshot of a work's attribution and history at a point in time.
Attestation
A confirmation of a fact — an event, exhibition, or claim — by an involved party.
Trust tier
An honest label for how well-confirmed a fact is, from single-party to two-sided.
Chain of custody
The ordered record of who has held, owned, or exhibited a work over time.
Append-only ledger
A record that can only be added to — never edited or deleted in place.
Tamper-evident
Built so that any change to a record is detectable, rather than prevented outright.
Merkle anchoring
Publishing one small fingerprint (a Merkle root) that commits to every record in a period.
OpenTimestamps
An open standard that timestamps data against the Bitcoin blockchain, without any coins or accounts.
Perceptual hash (phash)
An image fingerprint pinned into a certificate to tie it to a specific picture of the work.
Certificate of authenticity vs NFT
A COA proves a physical work is genuine; an NFT is a blockchain token — the two are not the same.