U
UnyKorn
Sovereign Publishing Infrastructure

Deterministic Literary Publishing

A multi-layer provenance model for verifiable manuscript authorship on Polygon. Five smart contracts, four Merkle trees, and a five-layer provenance stack that makes literary works cryptographically undeniable.

5

Smart Contracts

4

Merkle Trees

56

Total Leaves

146

Automated Tests

14

Invariants

5

Provenance Layers

1

DOI Published

Why Deterministic Publishing

The Problem

Literary authorship is currently verified by publishers, agents, and legal agreements — all of which are mutable, disputable, and centrally controlled. An author has no cryptographic proof that a specific manuscript existed at a specific time in a specific form. Disputes about authorship, version priority, and intellectual property are resolved through litigation, not mathematics.

The Solution

Deterministic publishing creates a five-layer cryptographic provenance chain that makes manuscripts verifiable without institutional trust. Content hashes → Merkle roots → on-chain anchors → DOI registration → ORCID identity. Every layer is independently verifiable. The entire chain is anchored to Polygon's immutable ledger. Authorship becomes a mathematical fact, not a legal claim.

5-Layer Provenance Stack

1

Content Hash

SHA-256 of raw manuscript bytes — the content fingerprint

2

Merkle Root

4-tree Merkle architecture binding content, artifacts, images, and prompts

3

On-Chain Anchor

Polygon transaction receipt — immutable timestamp + block number

4

DOI Registration

Academic-grade permanent identifier via Zenodo (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18646886)

5

ORCID Identity

Author identity binding — ORCID: 0009-0008-8425-939X

4-Tree Merkle Architecture — 56 Leaves

Manuscript Tree

31 leaves

75,000 words → 31 content blocks → Merkle root. Any single word change invalidates the entire tree.

Artifact Tree

5 leaves

Cover art, typeset PDF, EPUB, audio, supplementary materials — each hashed as an artifact leaf.

Image Tree

10 leaves

All visual content anchored independently — illustrations, photographs, diagrams.

Prompt Tree

10 leaves

AI-assisted content provenance — every generative prompt preserved for transparency.

Super Root: All four individual Merkle roots are combined into a single super root hash — the complete manuscript fingerprint. This single hash, stored on Polygon, verifies every word, image, artifact, and AI prompt used in the work.

5 Polygon Smart Contracts

LiteraryAnchor

0x97f4...a90

Anchor Layer

Root-level content hash anchoring — immutable manuscript fingerprints on-chain

PublishingKernel (v1)

0x511c...3ae

Logic Layer

First-generation publishing logic — manuscript registration and metadata

PublishingKernelV2

0xca9F...037

Logic Layer

Enhanced publishing — multi-tree Merkle roots, batch operations, versioned artifacts

RoyaltyRouter

0x4416...461

Payment Layer

On-chain royalty distribution — automated payments to author and collaborators

AuthorIdentity

0xB9ff...170

Identity Layer

Sovereign author identity — ORCID binding, publisher credentials, reputation

Verification Suite — 146 Tests, 14 Invariants

Test Coverage

  • ✓ 146 automated tests across all 5 contracts
  • ✓ Merkle proof verification for all 4 trees
  • ✓ Content hash collision resistance validation
  • ✓ Royalty distribution correctness proofs
  • ✓ Identity binding and ORCID verification
  • ✓ Upgrade path testing (PublishingKernel v1 → v2)

14 Invariants

  • ◆ Content hash immutability — anchored hashes cannot change
  • ◆ Merkle root consistency — recomputed roots must match stored
  • ◆ Author identity binding — only registered ORCID can publish
  • ◆ Royalty conservation — total distributed ≤ total collected
  • ◆ Version ordering — v2 publications reference v1 ancestry
  • ◆ Timestamp monotonicity — anchor times only increase
  • ◆ Tree structure validity — leaves count matches expected depth

Case Study — "The 2,500 Donkeys"

75,000

Words

293,550

Bytes Compiled

31

Manuscript Blocks

First full-length literary work published through the deterministic provenance pipeline. 75,000-word manuscript split into 31 content blocks, each independently hashed and assembled into the Manuscript Merkle Tree. All four trees anchored on Polygon with DOI registration through Zenodo.

Academic Registration

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.18646886

Permanent digital object identifier — Zenodo

ORCID

0009-0008-8425-939X

Sovereign author identity — globally unique

Polygon Mainnet · 5 Smart Contracts · 146 Tests · DOI Registered · ORCID Verified