Frequently asked questions
How ChainAnchor works, and the questions issuers and procurement teams ask most. See also the Security FAQ and Pricing.
The basics
What is ChainAnchor?
ChainAnchor lets institutions issue digital certificates that anyone can verify in seconds — and that stay verifiable even if ChainAnchor disappears. Each credential is fingerprinted and anchored to a public blockchain, so its authenticity doesn’t depend on our servers being online or on a recipient trusting us.
How does verification actually work?
When a credential is issued, we compute its SHA-256 fingerprint and record that fingerprint on the public Base blockchain. To verify, anyone recomputes the fingerprint of the file and confirms it matches the value recorded on-chain at the stated time. Any change to the file — even a single pixel — produces a different fingerprint, so tampering is immediately detectable. You can verify a credential here.
Why blockchain — isn’t that just hype?
We don’t ask you to care about blockchain. We use a public chain for one practical reason: so verification doesn’t depend on us. It’s the most widely-trusted way to create a record that no single company — including ChainAnchor — can alter or quietly switch off. There are no tokens, no crypto wallets, and nothing for your recipients to buy or install.
What happens if ChainAnchor shuts down?
Your credentials keep working. The anchor lives on a public blockchain, and our verifier is open source — you can download it and run it offline, forever. We also let you export all your anchors at any time. This independence is the whole point: unlike closed badge platforms, a ChainAnchor credential isn’t hostage to our continued existence.
For issuers
How do I become a verified issuer?
Create an organization and verify control of your domain once (by adding a DNS record). From then on, your credentials carry a “verified issuer” badge and appear in the public issuer directory, so a relying party can confirm the credential genuinely came from you.
Can I issue a whole cohort at once?
Yes. Upload a CSV (recipient, credential title, issue date, optional expiry) and the certificate files, and the entire batch is anchored in a single blockchain transaction using a Merkle tree — efficient and low-cost, with an individual proof for every recipient.
Can a credential be revoked or expire?
Yes. You can set an expiry date at issue time, and revoke a credential (single or in bulk) at any point — for example if a qualification is rescinded. The proof page then clearly shows the credential as revoked or expired. Importantly, this is an issuer-published status: the blockchain timestamp remains valid (it still proves the file existed when issued), but you’ve marked the credential no longer valid. We never claim a blockchain record was deleted, because it can’t be.
Could someone fake a credential by copying our badge?
No. Verification checks both the on-chain anchor and that the credential was issued by your domain-verified organization. A copied badge or edited PDF fails on both counts.
Trust, legal & data
Is a ChainAnchor credential legally or officially recognised?
We provide tamper-evidence, a trustworthy timestamp, and proof of the issuing organization — not a legal accreditation. We’re deliberately careful here: we prove integrity, time, issuer, and status, and a relying party decides what to do with that. We don’t claim credentials are “court-admissible” or “officially recognised.”
What about GDPR and personal data?
We anchor a fingerprint (a hash) — not the certificate file or any personal data — to the blockchain. No personal data goes on-chain. See our Privacy Policy, DPA, and Cookie notice.
Isn’t blockchain bad for the environment?
We anchor on Base, a proof-of-stake Ethereum layer-2. The energy per anchor is negligible, and we batch many credentials into a single transaction, so the footprint is a tiny fraction of older proof-of-work blockchains.
Do you support SSO and automated provisioning?
Yes — institutional plans include single sign-on via OpenID Connect (Google Workspace, Microsoft Entra, Okta, and others) and SCIM provisioning, so users are added and removed automatically as your directory changes. See the Security FAQ for procurement details.
Beyond credentials
Can I anchor things other than certificates?
Yes. The same engine anchors any file, or captures a web page (with the browser extension), to prove it existed unaltered at a point in time — useful for contracts, IP, compliance records, and evidence. Credentials are simply our primary focus.
Do recipients need an account or a crypto wallet?
No. Recipients receive a link they can share, add to LinkedIn, or download as a PDF, and anyone can verify it with no account, no wallet, and no software to install.
What does it cost?
There’s a free tier to get started, a Pro plan for instant anchoring and monitoring, and custom Institutional pricing for SSO, branding and bulk issuance. See the pricing page.
Still have a question? Email contact@chainanchor.io.