Simple Proof, the Bitcoin-based document timestamping company, recently announced official partnerships with El Salvador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Environment to protect
government documents using Bitcoin blockchain technology. The announcement was made during the Bitcoin Histórico conference at the National Theater of San Salvador, where CEO Carlos Toriello presented alongside OpenTimestamps creator and core Bitcoin contributor Peter Todd.
This collaboration marks El Salvador’s continued leadership in applying Bitcoin technology beyond financial applications. Both ministries have started recording official documents on the Bitcoin blockchain, with verified records now publicly available through dedicated government portals.
“Bitcoin is not only digital money, it is also a clock that no one controls. This allows us to accurately certify the exact moment a document was created, thus guaranteeing its authenticity and protecting the history of the country forever… We are helping to ensure that the history of the country is preserved intact and can be verified directly on Bitcoin, without intermediaries,” said Carlos Toriello, CEO of Simple Proof, in a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine.
The company has run several successful pilot programs in the past, including one in Screven County, Georgia, USA, and another in Guatemala, where it had a direct influence on the 2023 elections.
This deployment builds on Simple Proof’s previous work in El Salvador, where CUBO+ program completion certificates became the country’s first public documents recorded via the Bitcoin blockchain.
Time-stamped documents from the Ministry of Environment, including national reports and public records, are available at blockchain.ambiente.gob.sv. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs offers verification of institutional reports and records at rree.gob.sv/logros-y-memorias.
Peter Todd, creator of OpenTimestamps, the platform and protocol used in part to timestamp critical data on the Bitcoin blockchain, said in the press release: “With a single transaction, we can protect millions of documents without cluttering the network or altering its monetary function,” noting that the system only stores cryptographic hashes rather than actual documents on Bitcoin.
The project positions El Salvador as a global benchmark for the use of blockchain technology in government.
information management, strengthening transparency and public trust in democratic institutions and processes, eliminating the possibility of falsification of documents.
