Proposal

Project Summary: The Decentralized Digital Notary Service aims to leverage the Stellar blockchain and Soroban smart contracts to provide a secure, transparent, and tamper-proof notary service. By recording cryptographic proofs of document existence and integrity on the blockchain, we empower individuals and businesses to notarize documents without relying on centralized authorities. This service will offer a low-cost, scalable, and globally accessible solution to verify the authenticity of documents, agreements, and other critical data.

Problem Statement: Traditional notary services are often costly, time-consuming, and geographically limited. There is a growing need for a decentralized solution that can provide the same level of trust and security without the inherent inefficiencies of centralized notary processes. Current digital solutions often rely on third-party intermediaries, which reintroduce points of failure and trust issues.

Proposed Solution: The Decentralized Digital Notary Service will address these challenges by implementing a Soroban smart contract on the Stellar blockchain to notarize documents securely. Our service will enable users to upload documents, generate a unique cryptographic hash, and record it on the blockchain as proof of authenticity. This proof is timestamped, tamper-proof, and publicly verifiable, ensuring the integrity and existence of the document at a specific point in time.

Implementation Details

1. Process Overview

2. Soroban Smart Contract Development

The smart contract will handle the core functionality of the notary service: - Accept a document hash along with metadata (e.g., user ID, timestamp). - Store the hash and associated data on the Stellar blockchain. - Provide methods for notarization and verification.

#![no_std]
extern crate soroban_sdk;

use soroban_sdk::{contractimpl, Env, BytesN, Address};

pub struct NotaryContract;

#[contractimpl]
impl NotaryContract {
    // Store the document hash and associated metadata.
    pub fn notarize(env: Env, doc_hash: BytesN<32>, user_address: Address) -> BytesN<32> {
        // Create a unique key combining user address and doc hash.
        let key = (user_address.clone(), doc_hash.clone());

        // Save the document hash with the associated metadata in the contract storage.
        env.storage().set(&key, &env.block_timestamp());

        // Return the transaction hash as proof of notarization.
        doc_hash
    }

    // Verify a document by checking if the hash exists in the blockchain.
    pub fn verify(env: Env, doc_hash: BytesN<32>, user_address: Address) -> bool {
        let key = (user_address.clone(), doc_hash.clone());

        // Check if the hash exists in the storage.
        env.storage().has(&key)
    }
}

3. Frontend Application Development

Frontend Framework: We will use a modern JavaScript framework like React for building a responsive web interface that allows users to interact with the Soroban smart contract.

import { useState } from 'react';
import SorobanSdk from 'soroban-sdk'; // Hypothetical SDK for interacting with Soroban contracts

function NotaryApp() {
  const [file, setFile] = useState(null);
  const [status, setStatus] = useState('');

  // Function to handle file upload and generate hash
  const handleFileChange = (e) => {
    const file = e.target.files[0];
    setFile(file);
  };

  // Function to hash the file
  const hashFile = async (file) => {
    const buffer = await file.arrayBuffer();
    const hash = await crypto.subtle.digest('SHA-256', buffer);
    return Buffer.from(hash).toString('hex');
  };

  // Function to notarize the document
  const notarizeDocument = async () => {
    if (!file) {
      setStatus('Please select a file first.');
      return;
    }

    const docHash = await hashFile(file);
    const userAddress = 'USER_STELLAR_ADDRESS'; // Replace with actual Stellar address logic

    try {
      // Call the Soroban smart contract
      const result = await SorobanSdk.notarize(docHash, userAddress);
      setStatus(`Document notarized! Transaction ID: ${result}`);
    } catch (error) {
      setStatus(`Error notarizing document: ${error.message}`);
    }
  };

  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Decentralized Notary Service</h1>
      <input type="file" onChange={handleFileChange} />
      <button onClick={notarizeDocument}>Notarize Document</button>
      <p>{status}</p>
    </div>
  );
}

export default NotaryApp;

4. Security and Privacy Considerations

5. IPFS Integration (Optional)

For users who wish to store their documents, IPFS can be used for decentralized file storage. The document hash stored on the Stellar blockchain would be linked to the IPFS hash, providing a full decentralized storage and notarization solution.

6. User Adoption Strategy

To encourage user adoption and compete effectively with existing notary services, we propose the following strategies:

By focusing on these professional groups and tailoring our approach to their specific needs, we can accelerate adoption among those who most frequently require notary services. This targeted strategy will help establish our platform as the go-to solution for digital notarization across multiple industries.

7. Legal Considerations

8. Long-term Sustainability Plan

9. Performance Metrics and KPIs

To evaluate the success of the project, we will track the following key performance indicators:

Proposal

Grant Proposal: Decentralized Digital Notary Service on Stellar Soroban

Implementation Details

1. Process Overview

2. Soroban Smart Contract Development

3. Frontend Application Development

4. Security and Privacy Considerations

5. IPFS Integration (Optional)

6. User Adoption Strategy

7. Legal Considerations

8. Long-term Sustainability Plan

9. Performance Metrics and KPIs

Budget and Roadmap