How it works
No system can stop a determined liar at the moment of recording. Ours makes lying inconsistent — a false claim must survive countersignatures, mass-balance checks, random lab tests, and unannounced audits, all at once. Here is the chain, in order.
- 01
Sealed at origin
Product is sealed into containers with single-use, serialized tamper-evident seals at the point of origin — the apiary, the farm. The extraction or harvest event is captured on the spot: geotagged, timestamped, photographed, signed.
- 02
Every handoff signed by both sides
Each custody transfer is countersigned by giver and receiver: seal serials sighted, weights recorded. If the two parties disagree, the protocol records the conflict instead of papering over it. Transport carries GPS and temperature loggers.
- 03
Mass balance, checked continuously
Software reconciles every lot, every time: a facility can never ship more verified-origin product than it verifiably received. Blending is allowed — but the output claim is computed from the inputs, never typed in.
- 04
Random physical verification
Lab samples (NMR, isotope, pollen analysis) and unannounced site visits are selected by public randomness — derived from a blockchain anchor that does not exist until after the selection period closes. Neither we nor the client can steer which lots get checked.
- 05
Anchored, then published
Event records are hashed onto a public ledger, so history cannot be quietly rewritten — including by us. Every certified unit gets a QR fact sheet: verified facts with evidence, what was NOT verified, live certificate status.
The tiers — how deep the chain is verified
| Tier | Name | What is verified |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | Facility Verified | The final production facility: events, mass balance, intake records |
| T2 | Chain Verified | T1 + every custody transfer and transport leg between named suppliers and the facility |
| T3 | Origin Verified | T2 + first-mile capture at the geolocated origin (farm, apiary), with unannounced spot audits |
| T4 | Origin Verified + Forensic | T3 + physical origin corroboration (NMR, isotope, pollen/DNA) on randomly sampled lots |
The custody models — how the product physically flowed
| Model | Meaning | What the label may honestly say |
|---|---|---|
| IP | Identity preserved | "This unit traces to one origin lot" — e.g., from apiary X, harvest of Aug 2026 |
| SG | Segregated | "100% from these verified origins" — certified material never mixed with uncertified |
| MB | Mass balance | "Facility sourced N% verified-origin" — an accounting claim, and the fact sheet says so plainly |
Most everyday goods are blended commodities — milk is pooled, cotton blended, grain mixed in silos. Pretending otherwise is how certification becomes fiction. Instead, the certificate states which model applies, and the consumer reads exactly what was achieved. The full rules are in the protocol specification.
What can end a certificate
Certificates are continuously evaluated, not annual snapshots. A critical exception — an unexplained broken seal, a mass-balance violation, confirmed adulteration — suspends the certificate publicly within 24 hours, automatically, even while an appeal is heard. Confirmed fraud revokes it permanently, on a public list. A certificate that can't be lost would be worthless; ours can be, and the scheme rules say exactly how.