Building permit
Municipality of Esperanza (demo) · 20 Oct 2026- Application receivedSealed
- Documents reviewedSealed
- Site inspection passedSealed
- Permit approvedSealed
Sealed in Bitcoin, block 972,363
Your browser is checking it…
Neutral transparency, by default.
Every step an institution takes is sealed the moment it happens. Anyone can check it in seconds, and no one can quietly change it, not even the institution.
Open standardFree to verifyNo personal data on-chain
permits.js
async function approvePermit(c) { await db.permits.update(c.id, "approved"); const r = await hardstate.append({ type: "permit.approve", case: c.id, }, sign); notify(c.applicant, r.receipt);}
- Application
- Review
- Inspection
- Decision
Any language: one HTTP call and a signature at each step.
Transparent institutions.
- Traceable, end to end
- Auditable by anyone
- No registries to deal with
Bitcoin mainnet · livenext seal --:--
Block 972,826
daily anchor · 8 batches
tx ca0b1e29…157 sats
Block 972,367
express anchor · 2 batches
tx 6ccbc0e6…785 sats
Block 972,366
express anchor · 2 batches
tx 5c910aa4…314 sats
Block 972,363
express anchor · 2 batches
tx 7c1f42ae…471 satsBatch acab91e5
7 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 41ace423
2 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 52c2f31b
5 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 0ce31154
5 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 18e9f3d4
1 record
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch ceac8455
3 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch bc81d6ff
1 record
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 6550e4ec
2 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch baea072d
6 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 1935ce06
7 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch 1a5e1ae2
2 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a blockBatch f6de68d1
6 records
OpenTimestamps · waiting for a block
Every bribe at a government window leaves a record that the same office can quietly edit.
Countries measure corruption through surveys and indexes. What no survey can measure is how often the paper trail itself was changed, because the only copy belongs to the office being audited.
Countries score below 50 out of 100 on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2025. The global average fell to 42, the lowest in a decade.
CPI < 50 122CPI ≥ 50 60Each dot is one country
Paid in bribes worldwide every year, about 2% of global GDP, according to the IMF.
Public service users in Asia paid a bribe in the past year: 836 million people across 17 countries.
Case study: Mexico+48.7%
Bribes in public procedures cost MXN 17,707 million in 2025, up from 11,910 million in 2023. Business licenses are the second most corrupt procedure in the country.
Sources: Transparency International CPI 2025; IMF, Corruption: Costs and Mitigating Strategies (2016); Global Corruption Barometer Asia 2020; INEGI ENCIG 2023 and 2025, constant 2018 pesos.
Why it holds up
Cheap enough to run for years, open enough to plug into anything, and anchored where nobody can quietly rewrite it.
$277
per year, all-in
Cheap enough to run forever
Anchoring every step to Bitcoin costs an institution about $277 a year — a flat cost, with no token and no fee per citizen.
One open standard to plug into
HSS-1 is public. Your system signs a 32-byte hash and posts it; the receipt drops straight into the notice you already send.
Permanent and public
Every batch is anchored to Bitcoin mainnet and checkable in any browser — no trust in the office, or in us.
Same records. Opposite trust model.
Every institution already keeps a registry. The question is who has to be believed. A private database asks you to trust the office. HardState makes tampering provable to everyone.
Private institutional registryHardState
Who do you have to trust?The institution's word, and whoever has database access.No one. SHA-256, signatures and Bitcoin do the trusting for you.
If a record is edited or deleted?It changes silently. The old version is simply gone.The hash chain and Merkle root break, and the audit points to the exact record.
Who can verify it?Only insiders, using the same system you're questioning.Anyone, in a browser, for free — against public Bitcoin explorers.
Proof of when it happened?A timestamp column the same database can rewrite.A Bitcoin block height no one can move, not even us.
What the citizen holds?A screenshot or a PDF the office can deny.A signed receipt that verifies even if the office cooperates with nothing.
If the institution disappears?The records vanish with its servers.Receipts and anchors stay verifiable forever, with no server of ours either.
Why Bitcoin
Anchored to the most neutral ledger in the world.
Every record's fingerprint ends up in a Bitcoin block. Nobody can move it afterwards: not the institution, not a government, not us.
- International
- Neutral
- Open
- Unalterable
No owner: no government, no company. Running since 2009.
See it work
From a signed step to a proof anyone can check — without trusting the office that keeps the records.
The flow
- 1An official records a step
- 2It's anchored to Bitcoin
- 3The citizen gets a receipt
- 4Anyone verifies in the browser
One signature from an open session writes the event to the HardState Log — no prompts, no passwords.
Record a step
Session open · 2hCaseBP-2026-0002 · Business license
StepSite inspection — passed
OfficerAna Torres
Checkpoint#48,127
root 446bdf…40fb · 1,522 recordsanchored to ↓
₿ Bitcoin block 921,420
OP_RETURN 485353 01 446bdf…40fb✓ 6 confirmations✓ HardState receiptBusiness license · BP-2026-0002Site inspection — passed · Sep 2026
82dd31…0f020Verified
- ✓Fingerprint recomputed from public fields
- ✓Office signature is valid
- ✓Merkle path climbs to the root
- ✓Root found in Bitcoin block 921,420
- ✓Citizen receipt matches the record
Integration
One piece of code. Every stage on record.
Place it wherever your system already saves a decision. Any language: one HTTP call and a signature.
- Observable
- Auditable
- End to end
Prepare the event, sign its 32-byte hash with your system's key, append it. The receipt that comes back goes into the notice you already send. Integration guide →
The lab
The real engine, in your browser — SHA-256, Ed25519 signatures and RFC 9162 Merkle proofs; only Bitcoin is simulated. Follow one record from its fingerprint to the chain, then play the corrupt insider and watch the audit point to exactly what changed.
- 1Bases
- 2Process
- 3Result
- 4Verification
Bases
One record → one fingerprint
With a salt, even a guessable record gets a fingerprint nobody can reverse. HardState salts every record, so nothing personal is exposed.
The office log
Each record chains onto the one before
Play the insider
Tamper with a record, then run the audit
Result
Fingerprints fold into one root, written to Bitcoin
Current Merkle root
Bitcoin anchors (simulated)
Audit result
Open to everyone — who catches the tampering
Plain database
Root in Bitcoin, transaction id kept by the office
Run the audit to compare both designs against the same database.
HardState
Same anchor, plus record numbers, a hash chain, a public audit and citizen receipts
Run the audit to compare both designs against the same database.
Click any record or tree leaf to verify it step by step.
Use cases
One standard for every record people rely on
Governments, universities, aid groups, companies and industry already keep these records. HardState lets the people they affect check them, without having to trust whoever keeps them.
Government
Public processes, verifiable end to end
- Tenders
- Permits
- Budgets
- Customs
A restaurant's health inspection is sealed on the spot. Anyone can see the result wasn't changed afterwards.
Universities
Diplomas any employer can check
A degree checks out in seconds, even if the university's own systems are gone.
NGOs & aid
Aid that provably reaches each family
Each family keeps a receipt for what it received, independent of the organisation's books.
Companies
Compliance reports beyond dispute
Reports and complaints keep a date no one can move, decisive in an audit or a dispute.
Industry
Medicines traced from factory to patient
A pharmacist scans a box and sees its whole trail. A forged certificate no longer matches.
Any process that is a black box today can become verifiable.
Open resource
A public map of who you can actually verify
The Coverage Index scores every institution on HardState — identity, anchoring and openness — and plots it on a map anyone can consult. It is a free dataset for journalists, auditors and citizens, not a dashboard locked behind a login.
Open the coverage mapWhat the simulation shows
We played the corrupt insider: someone who holds the signing key and edits, deletes or back-dates records to hide a bribe, running each attack 600 times. Every cover-up breaks the receipts citizens hold — so the more people check theirs, the more we catch. Drag the slider to see it.
Detection rises with each citizen who checks a receipt
Edit a record before the next anchorDelete a record and renumber the restInsert a backdated recordDetection follows 1 − (1 − p)k, where k is the number of receipts an attack invalidates. Covering one deletion breaks every receipt after it, so cover-ups get harder to hide the more they touch.
Show the numbers as a table
| 0% | 5% | 10% | 25% | 50% | 75% | 100% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edit a record before the next anchor | 0% | 23% | 42% | 71% | 94% | 98% | 100% |
| Delete a record and renumber the rest | 0% | 22% | 42% | 68% | 86% | 98% | 100% |
| Insert a backdated record | 0% | 25% | 43% | 71% | 89% | 97% | 100% |
9 sTo reverse a leaked unsalted record fingerprint on one CPU core. With HardState’s 256-bit salt: about 1061 years.
1,046Signed records per second on one core in our test. A busy office handles a few per minute.
Method, code and raw numbers are in the repository: sim/run.mjs and sim/RESULTS.md. Deleting the last record of a batch can leave no gap in the numbering, which is why the receipt matters even for simple deletions.
Priced so the honest office can always afford the truth
Citizens verify, hold receipts and check proofs free, forever. Institutions pay by the assurance they need — never per record. The free tier only ever widens.
Community
Free
for public bodies, schools and NGOs
Everything a public office needs to be auditable, for good.
- 10,000 records a month (the limit only goes up)
- Daily Bitcoin anchor + OpenTimestamps every 10 min
- Console, officials, sessions and API
- QR receipt for every citizen
- Explorer and Coverage Index listing
Professional
$390
/ month · $3,900 billed yearly
For notaries, companies and single offices that want more assurance.
- Everything in Community
- Hourly Bitcoin anchors + 10 express anchors a month
- Verified-domain badge and branded receipts
- Monthly signed audit report
- 100,000 records a month
Institution
$990
/ month · $9,900 billed yearly
For ministries, large universities, municipalities and aid programmes.
- Everything in Professional
- 99.9% SLA with service credits
- Express anchors on demand, up to 5 departments
- Onboarding, integration and quarterly audits
- 1,000,000 records a month
Government
From $60k
/ year · sales-led
For states, national agencies and multi-municipality programmes.
- Dedicated node and anchors, data residency
- Licensed on-premise option and witness node
- Training and custom SLA
- Procurement paperwork, multi-year price protection
- Records by contract
Prices exclude tax and are shown in your local currency at checkout (USD, MXN, EUR). Registered NGOs and public universities get a standing 25% off. See the full comparison on thepricing page.
From a working product to the standard
HardState is a product institutions adopt without changing how they work, on an open standard anyone can check: offices write, universities and civil society audit, anyone verifies.
- 1
October 2026
Core is live on Bitcoin mainnet with passkey signing, plus a live simulation and this very demo.
- 2
National scale
Permits, inspections and public purchases, with one national root a day and express anchors on demand.
- 3
Open standard
HSS-1 spreads from peer to peer: once similar institutions publish verifiable records, any country or sector can adopt it, and staying opaque stands out.
A public good by what it does: citizens verify free, forever; small institutions run free up to ~10,000 records a month; paid plans start at $390/month and only widen the free tier. Adoption starts with institutions that want to prove they are clean.
Serves UN Sustainable Development Goal 16: targets 16.5 (reduce bribery), 16.6 (transparent institutions) and 16.10 (public access to information).
Built on a decade of precedent
Anchoring government records already works. What earlier systems lacked was a receipt in the citizen's hands — the piece HardState adds.
Estonia
KSI hash chains protect health, court and business registries against insiders — but citizens can't check them on their own.
Georgia
Land titles anchored to Bitcoin through a private chain. It worked because the registry was already digital and trusted.
Argentina
The Official Gazette is stamped daily on the federal blockchain BFA, free of charge.