Several blockchain-based document-notarization and data-anchoring projects from the 2015-2020 era shut down, pivoted, or were acquired and quietly folded into something else. This page is a respectful look at what changed and why — the point is to be honest about what a longevity-focused evidence system needs to survive, not to mock anyone's shipped work.
Factom built a blockchain-anchoring layer for arbitrary data integrity (its Entry Credit model recorded hashes into its own chain, itself periodically anchored into Bitcoin). The project wound down its original foundation-and-token model in the early 2020s; the underlying technology and team continued in different forms (Factom Protocol / later work under different branding). Widely reported at the time as a token-economics and go-to-market sustainability problem more than a cryptographic one — the anchoring mechanism itself wasn't shown to be broken.
Several smaller blockchain-timestamping products from the same era (cheap, simple "hash your document into a blockchain" tools) did not survive as standalone businesses — commonly because the value proposition (a timestamp proof) was thin on its own without the surrounding identity, authorization, and admissibility context a real dispute or audit actually needs.
verify.py, this repository) has zero dependency on any
company's continued operation.
A blockchain notary answers "did this hash exist at time T." ActaSeal answers a different, larger question: "was this specific agent authorized, under this specific policy, with this specific evidence, to take this specific money-touching action — and can that be proven independently later." The timestamp/anchor machinery is one input into that larger evidentiary record, not the whole product.