Colin Kirkwood ’25

Posted on April 15, 2025

BitCam: Trustless Media Verification on Bitcoin
Colin Kirkwood ’25, Computer Science major
Faculty mentor: Dr. Martin Hellwig, Mathematics and Computer Science

BitCam is an open-source workflow that enables trustless media capture and verification using the Bitcoin network and the Ordinals protocol. It integrates a full Bitcoin node with Ordinals support, allowing users to inscribe both the hash of an image and the Docker image onto the Bitcoin blockchain for anyone to verify. The project’s vision is to create a foundation for decentralized media authenticity, where images—and potentially videos—can be cryptographically verified without trust in third parties. This workflow is fully automated, from image capture and hashing to inscription on Bitcoin, using Python scripts within a Docker container that can itself be verified via its hash.

Poster Presentation: Wednesday, April 23, 1:30 – 3 p.m.

16th Annual Celebration Schedule