Scalable Data Notarization Leveraging Hybrid DLTs

Abstract

Notarization is a procedure that enhance data management by ensuring the authentication of data during audits, thereby increasing trust in the audited data. Blockchain is frequently used as a secure, immutable, and transparent storage, contributing to make data notarization procedures more effective and trustable. Several blockchain-based data notarization protocols have been proposed in literature and commercial solutions. However, these implementations, whether on public or private blockchains, face inherent challenges: high fees on public blockchains and trust issues on private platforms, limiting the adoption of blockchains for data notarization or forcing several trade-offs. In this paper, we explore the use of hybrid blockchain architectures for data notarization, with a focus on scalability issues. Through the analysis of a real-world use case, the data notarization of product passports in supply chains, we propose a novel approach utilizing a data structure designed to efficiently manage the trade-offs in terms of storage occupation and costs involved in notarizing a large collection of data.