Whitney Smith Jr. (February 26, 1940 – November 17, 2016) was an American vexillologist. He coined the term vexillology, which refers to the scholarly analysis of all aspects of flags. He was a founde
1. Compute SHA-256 of OTSCanonicalRecord value → must equal OTSHash 2. Open OTSProofURL → extract Bitcoin block number → must equal OTSBitcoinBlock 3. GET OTSBitcoinBlockVerifyURL → returns the Bitcoin block hash at height OTSBitcoinBlock; GET https://blockstream.info/api/block/{that hash} → its timestamp must match OTSTimestamp 4. Read CopyrightID inside OTSCanonicalRecord → must equal the CopyrightID above 5. GET OTSVerificationAPI → pre-computed 6-check result from server 6. If all match: this entity was registered on CopyrightChains at OTSTimestamp, independently verifiable on Bitcoin Note: an OTS proof may carry multiple Bitcoin attestations; OTSBitcoinBlock is the earliest confirmed one — a later attestation inside the proof corroborates it and is not a mismatch
Dual-chain trust anchor. Chain 1 (CopyrightChains): CopyrightID 0xe19035e8d2a6f85b0a2415d4e5056cce2da547989e1d3a231bd446f165241236. Chain 2 (Bitcoin): anchored in block 954066 (2026-06-17T08:11:48Z). Bridge: the canonical record inside this Bitcoin proof contains the same CopyrightID. Verify: download https://artists.proofprofile.net/proofs/artist/651f2d3b-cd50-4a44-99ad-cbbbc41e09ee.json and https://artists.proofprofile.net/proofs/artist/651f2d3b-cd50-4a44-99ad-cbbbc41e09ee.ots, run `ots verify -f record.json proof.ots` (https://opentimestamps.org).