PAPER TRAIL
4,000 artworks by Miss AL Simpson. Each with a RUTHVEN Origin Passport.
Every Passport is pinned to IPFS. Every one carries a Merkle root over its evidence. The collection root is anchored on Ethereum. Any work can be checked against the chain.
PAPER TRAIL brings RUTHVEN’s asset intelligence into a live NFT collection, connecting each artwork with its origins and supporting evidence, for people and AI agents to explore. Digital art is our starting point; RUTHVEN’s ambition extends across digital assets.
- Pinned to IPFSEvery Passport, with its evidence files, is pinned as a provenance package. Its address is a fingerprint of its contents: change a byte and the address changes.
- Verified by Merkle rootEach Passport carries an evidence root over its own claims and files. The 4,000 roots are combined into one collection root,
0x16770c75…00b7f9, set on Ethereum in the RuthvenAnchor registry at block 26,102,679. - Checked against the chainAny single Passport can be proved to belong to the anchored set from its Merkle proof and the root on Ethereum. Verify a work · the roots and block numbers.
- 4,000Origin Passports issuedCompleted 1 Oct 2026The collection →
- 4,000Provenance packages pinned to IPFSCompleted 1 Oct 2026One package, #1140 →
- 1Collection root anchored on EthereumCompleted 2 Oct 2026 · block 26,102,679The transaction →
PAPER TRAIL deployment record. Each figure is a completed step, linked to its evidence.
Seven years of cryptoart history, cut up and laid down again.
Every element began with the artist’s own work. She wrote every rule and made no cut.
A machine built by the artist took her archive of 2019–2026 apart, piece by piece, and rebuilt it as 4,000 new works. Each work’s Origin Passport names the earlier works it was cut from, in the order laid down, with the hashes of its files and the evidence behind every statement.
A record, its evidence, and checks anyone can run.
Every Origin Passport is built in three layers. The detail, from Merkle roots to block numbers, is on the developer page.
- 01
The asset record
What the work is, who made it, what it was made from and how. Each statement is kept with who made it, when, and what kind of evidence it rests on. Corrections are added beside the old entry, never over it.
- 02
Its supporting evidence
The files, hashes and source records behind each statement, published with the work so a person or an agent can follow any claim back to what supports it.
- 03
Independent checks
The files are pinned to IPFS and the issued Passports are anchored on Ethereum, so anyone can confirm that a record is the one issued, and unchanged, without asking RUTHVEN.
What a check proves. It shows that a claim appears in the record as issued. It does not, by itself, make the claim true; each claim says what it rests on, so you can judge it.