CertChain: A Scalable, Privacy-Preserving Blockchain Framework for Tamper-Proof Academic Credential Verification

The integrity of academic credentials forms the bedrock of trust in the global labor market. However, the proliferation of diploma mills and sophisticated digital forgery techniques has undermined this trust. Traditional verification mechanisms are plagued by manual bottlenecks, lack of trans- parency, and single points of failure. This research presents CertChain, a novel decentralized application (dApp) leveraging the Ethereum blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to create a tamper-proof, globally accessible verification infrastructure. Unlike prior implementations that suffer from high gas costs, CertChain introduces a gas-optimized ”Hash- Only” storage pattern. We provide a comprehensive analysis of the system architecture, smart contract security auditing, and a comparative performance evaluation against centralized solutions. Results indicate a 98% reduction in verification latency and a 100% immunity to data mutability attacks.