Common questions

No. CERTELO is a digital evidence preservation tool, not a patent office or law firm. It does not replace formal patent filings or legal counsel, but serves as vital supporting evidence of prior creation before formal IP registration.

Confidence and legal preparedness. CERTELO allows creators, innovators, startups, and enterprises to establish an immutable paper trail of priority and data integrity before sharing confidential documents, pitch decks, software code, or research with third parties.

Verification can be performed in two ways: 1) Instant Verification: Upload the original file to CERTELO's online verification tool to confirm the SHA-256 hash matches the recorded timestamp; 2) Independent Verification: Drop the file into any offline SHA-256 hash calculator, copy the hash string, and look up the recorded block transaction on any open-source Electra Protocol block explorer.

Yes. CERTELO's architecture supports integration with AI agent workflows, automated data pipelines, and MCP servers, enabling AI systems to programmatically request cryptographic timestamps for generated reports and data transactions.

No. Your file never leaves your device. CERTELO generates a 64-character SHA-256 cryptographic fingerprint locally within your web browser. Neither CERTELO nor the public blockchain ever sees, receives, or stores your raw file or confidential document content.

Yes. CERTELO enforces absolute Zero-Knowledge privacy architecture. Because no Personal Identifiable Information (PII) or underlying document content is ever processed or stored on our servers, CERTELO naturally complies with GDPR, CCPA, and global data protection standards.

Media representatives, strategic partners, and enterprise sales leads can contact the CERTELO team directly using the contact form and press resources available on our official website.

Yes. You can test drive CERTELO for free to experience the user interface and generate a local cryptographic hash. However, registering the permanent proof on the immutable blockchain requires finalizing the transaction with a credit or subscription credit.

No. E-signatures confirm mutual agreement between parties, and digital archives store files. CERTELO adds a lightweight, complementary proof layer focused specifically on verifying when a file existed and that it has not been tampered with.

Yes. AI developers, data engineers, and creators can timestamp prompt chains, synthetic datasets, fine-tuning configurations, model weights, and AI outputs to establish a verifiable lineage and audit trail.

No. Third-party verification is completely open, free, and accessible to anyone worldwide without creating an account or paying fees.

CERTELO is built for inventors, startups, software developers, legal counsel, AI research teams, creative designers, consultants, and enterprise compliance departments who require fast, legally admissible evidence of document existence and integrity.

CERTELO aims to build a global, frictionless trust layer for digital evidence, document verification, IP protection, and AI-related proof workflows across legal, financial, and tech industries.

Any modification—even adding a space, altering metadata, or re-saving a PDF—changes the underlying binary data. This generates a completely new SHA-256 hash. Your certificate remains permanently valid for the original version, and you can generate a new certificate for the updated version to build an audit trail.

CERTELO proves prior existence and data integrity at an exact point in time. While establishing who held a specific digital file first is vital evidence in IP litigation, full legal ownership also depends on contracts, jurisdictional copyright laws, and authorship context.

Proof of Existence is a cryptographic mechanism that produces mathematical evidence that a specific digital file existed at a given moment by recording its unique digital fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) on an immutable ledger without exposing or storing the file's raw content.

Creating a certificate takes less than two minutes. File hashing occurs instantaneously in your browser, and Electra Protocol anchors the transaction onto the blockchain within 1 to 2 seconds.

By generating a CERTELO certificate prior to publishing your artwork, writing, or software online, you establish an immutable, publicly verifiable timestamp proving you held the original work before web scrapers indexed it.

No. Unlike Bitcoin's energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW), Electra Protocol runs on Proof-of-Stake (PoS v3.0e). Its entire global network of 300+ validator nodes consumes roughly 1.5 kWh—comparable to running a standard household appliance—while maintaining equivalent SHA-256 cryptographic security.

With the explosive rise of AI-generated content, remote collaboration, digital forgery, and synthetic media, verifying data authenticity, tracking dataset lineage, and proving human prior creation have become urgent global security and legal needs.

It uses verifiable infrastructure, but the launch narrative should focus on Proof of Existence, not blockchain.

Yes. You can compress an entire folder, code repository, or multi-file project into a single archive file (such as `.zip` or `.tar.gz`) and generate a CERTELO certificate for that single compressed file.

Yes. CERTELO provides a robust REST API and developer SDKs that allow enterprise software (ERP, CRM, Document Management Systems, or custom SaaS apps) to automatically calculate SHA-256 hashes and trigger certificate generation.

CERTELO supports all digital file types without exception—including PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, images (PNG, JPG), videos, CAD files, source code, dataset archives, and ZIP files. Because processing occurs client-side in your browser, there are no artificial file size limits.

A cryptographic fingerprint is a unique 64-character hexadecimal string generated by running raw binary file data through the SHA-256 hashing algorithm. It acts as digital DNA: if even a single character, pixel, or byte in the file changes, the resulting hash changes entirely.

To enforce trade secret rights under the EU Trade Secrets Directive and US Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), companies must prove they took 'reasonable measures' to maintain secrecy. CERTELO allows businesses to timestamp proprietary formulas, algorithms, and technical specs locally without uploading them to cloud servers—establishing proof of creation while preserving absolute secrecy.

Renaming your file will NOT invalidate your certificate or alter its cryptographic hash. The SHA-256 fingerprint is calculated strictly from the binary content inside the file, completely independent of operating system filenames or title labels.

Teams can timestamp raw training data archives and pre-processing scripts before training begins. This creates an unalterable audit trail that proves data origin, supports compliance requirements (such as EU AI Act documentation expectations), and prevents model-poisoning disputes.

CERTELO is an advanced Proof of Existence platform designed to help users create verifiable, immutable, and tamper-proof digital evidence that a specific file existed in an exact state at a precise point in time.

Keep the original, unaltered file in a secure backup location along with its corresponding CERTELO `.pdf` certificate and raw transaction metadata. Never edit the master file.

Unlike legacy timestamp authorities or expensive notary services, CERTELO emphasizes universal simplicity, local zero-knowledge privacy (your files never leave your browser), sub-second blockchain finality, and permanent independent verification that remains valid forever—even if CERTELO ceases operation.

Your certificate remains 100% valid and independently verifiable forever. Because your file's cryptographic hash is anchored directly to the public, decentralized Electra Protocol blockchain, anyone holding the original file can independently confirm the block timestamp using open-source tools or block explorers, completely independent of CERTELO.

Yes, as supporting electronic evidence. Under major electronic legal frameworks (such as EU eIDAS Regulation Article 41 and US Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 902), electronic timestamps cannot be denied legal effect or admissibility solely because they are in digital form. CERTELO establishes strong technical proof of priority and data integrity.

WIPO PROOF was a digital timestamping service offered by the World Intellectual Property Organization that was discontinued in 2022. CERTELO serves as a modern, decentralized alternative building on the same legal principles, using public blockchain ledgers for permanent, independent verification.

CERTELO utilizes the Electra Protocol (XEP), a high-speed, decentralized Proof-of-Stake (PoS v3.0e) Layer-1 blockchain network. Electra Protocol delivers immediate transaction finality (1–2 seconds), minimal fees, and enterprise-grade cryptographic security.

The biggest misconception is that proof only matters after a dispute arises. CERTELO is proactive: it establishes indisputable, time-stamped cryptographic evidence before problems, copyright theft, or breach of contract occur.

Viewing a file normally does not alter its binary content. However, using software that auto-saves background metadata (like 'last opened' timestamps) can alter the file bytes. We recommend storing an untouched 'master copy' of your timestamped file in a secure archive.