This is the first day of our document signing series. Today's video shows everything Attest does in under a minute. This article explains the idea behind it.
The problem with trusting the vendor
When you sign a document with a typical e-signature tool, the evidence that the signature happened lives with the vendor: the signature record, the audit trail and the certificate. If you ever need to prove the agreement, you rely on the vendor's records being available, complete and unchanged.
That is a reasonable assumption on most days. It is a weak one when the agreement is disputed, when an auditor asks for evidence years later, or when the vendor relationship ends.
What Attest does differently
Attest is designed so that the evidence belongs to the parties, not to us.
- Signers use a passkey. No account and no password. Signers confirm with Face ID or a fingerprint, and the passkey signs a statement that names the exact document.
- Documents are encrypted in the browser. The file is encrypted before it is uploaded. Attest stores only data it cannot read.
- Agreements are anchored on a public blockchain. When the last party signs, the agreement's fingerprint is recorded on Horizen. Anyone can confirm the record without asking us.
- Every party receives the same sealed copy. It includes the original document, a certificate and a complete audit trail.
- Anyone can verify, at no cost. The signed copy carries an open-source verifier that runs in any browser, even if Attest is unavailable.
- You can prove you signed without sharing the document. Zero-knowledge proofs, verified on zkVerify, prove facts about an agreement while revealing nothing else.
Why it matters
A signature is only useful if it can be proven later. Attest turns each signed agreement into evidence that any party, auditor or court can check independently, without depending on the service that produced it.
Over the next four days we will take these guarantees one at a time: the passkey, the encryption, the signed copy that proves its own pages, and the proof that reveals nothing else.
Try it
Every account can send two documents for free, with no credit card. The Signing plan is $5 per month for 20 documents, and signers never pay.
