Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin Community,

As a collector I'd like to use Bitcoins to protect rare artwork from fraud.  Would simply creating a wallet for each piece and allocating a certain amount of bitcoins be enough to prevent fraud?  The digital wallet would be given to the new owner.  I would keep a copy to validate it.

It's my understanding the wallets are appended into the block chain and should be able to be traced to it's original transaction?

Future scenario - If a heir to the artwork took the bitcoin wallet and transacted the bitcoins not knowing what it was for would the first wallet info exist in the blockchain or would it no longer show?  I may hide a special checksum on the artwork to give some level of traceability.

Have a Better idea - please share?

Steve

You might be able to use a P2SH address with a custom script that unlocks the coins if it meets some cryptographic condition that's equivalent to the copy of artwork being genuine. I have no idea what kind of condition will be suitable though, maybe the SHA256 sum of a digital rendering of the artwork?


It'll still exist but the input(s) of the address that represent the artwork will only be historical data in the blockchain. However this should still be enough to prove the rarity of the artwork.

Using a data <> hash relation in script makes sense but it is not safe because the moment that the "data" is revealed anyone else can also spend that transaction by providing the same data to be hashed and setting their own destination instead.

Not sure how you planned to give the wallet to the new owner and keep a copy. But if both individuals are expected to have a copy of the private key(s), this might indicate a design flaw.


If the first transaction has been included in a block, it will be stored on every full node forever.

I see no merit in binding some amount of bitcoin to the transaction if the only required effect is to store data on the blockchain that must not be manipulated later on.

The important things to think about would be what information is required in order to detect fraud later on, and what information may not be posted publicly.

So you want to use the blockchain to store a certificate of authenticity. Might wanna look at NFT (non fungible tokens)
And the seller would also send the buyer the corresponding token to the sold artwork.
Each token needs to be public and easily verifiable.
Might want to have a look : https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/36394/how-to-create-your-own-erc-721-nft-token

You can use other methods of course but I find it very suitable for your needs.
Good luck and curious what you come up with

If you don't want to go below Bitcoin's security standard, you can also use the counterparty (https://counterparty.io/feature/) protocol in order to implement NFT on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Last I heard about them (~2 years ago) most of the devs left and many projects migrated away from counterparty. Looks like they are still alive and also were in the works for some major updates. Might be worth a shot I guess.
OP if you want to have a look or ask around this is their thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=395761.0

A block chain can be useful for maintaining provenance, but there are issues.

I think this will be very helpful to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OopbFqcBFjY

That's indeed an issue. Many efforts in the semi-professional blockchain field are left as quickly as they are started. But I was talking about the counterparty protocol, not the organization. It is still technically suitable for implementing NFT. It was even featured in the book "Mastering Bitcoin" from O'Reilly because it can serve as a key example of what is technically possible on the Bitcoin blockchain. And even with the original counterparty developers didn't continue their work, what was written to the blockchain is still immutable and can be continued upon.

It will all depend on the value of the artwork whether it makes sense to go through the effort of making it work on the Bitcoin blockchain by finding developers who can make it work using the protocols that are already there, or whether to go with one of the shiny new blockchains. Ethereum still doing severe changes like moving from PoW to PoS can serve as an indication that its long-term viability still has to be decided, though.