HYDE: Art Provenance with Steganography and Blockchain · Matt Alexius
HYDE hides ownership watermarks inside digital art with steganography and records provenance on a blockchain, so artists can prove ownership after reposts, compression, and metadata stripping.
HYDE is a provenance system built on steganography and blockchain. It helps artists prove a piece is theirs and spot tampering, even after the image has been reposted, compressed, or stripped of metadata. It hides an ownership watermark in the artwork's pixels, then records the provenance on a blockchain, so the proof goes wherever the image goes.
The problem
Artists lose proof of ownership as soon as their work leaves the site they posted it on. Screenshots, reposts, and compression strip out EXIF data, visible watermarks get cropped, and platforms rarely help when there's a dispute. Most existing fixes are visible watermarks, which do nothing to give an artist a portable, tamper-resistant record of where an image came from.
The approach
HYDE uses two layers. Steganography hides ownership data inside the image's pixels, so it stays with the file through compression and when it moves between platforms. A blockchain record stores the artwork's provenance, and anyone can check it without trusting a central authority. Together they let you trace a stripped, reposted image back to the artist.
What I learned
Planning for the worst-case attacker changed most of our design decisions. Every assumption about how images move around the web had to be tested against compression, format conversion, and partial cropping. I also saw how much UX matters in security tools. If verifying takes more than a click, artists won't bother, however strong the cryptography is.
Certificates
- Certificate of Recognition: Best Technical Implementation: HYDE, College of Computer Studies, UC Lapu-Lapu & Mandaue, June 4, 2026