tl;dr: The Apostille is like an international notarization. One day it will be like the Dodo bird.

Back in July, I wrote a post “The Notary Public is an Endangered Species.”

Soon to join that list is the Apostille service.

For countries that are signatories to the 1961 Apostille Convention in the Hague, it provides a way to create an internationally acceptable form of proof for a claim.

So, for example, if you live in a foreign country and you need to prove to the government that you and your spouse are married, you would get an Apostille seal from your state government placed on top of your marriage certificate.

Same is true for death and birth certificates and a whole host of other documents.

At the time, like the Notary Public, the concept made a lot of sense and removed friction from international commerce by placing trust in the signatories to the convention to faithfully enforce the rules.

Today, well, soon, it won’t make sense because if you look at it, it’s a process full of intermediaries who are trust brokers.

All a foreign government will need to do is look at the Maryland marriage blockchain to verify that two people (who can authenticate their identity through their digital keys, which are the same as the signatories to the marriage certificate) are, in fact, married.

Boom…Apostille no longer necessary.

So, sure, that will take a while to happen, but when it does, all of those “international Apostille services” online which charge nearly $200 for a service that the Secretary of State will provide for $2 will no longer exist.

So, they too, will get disrupted.

The bull run of crypto is fun to watch and participate in (if that’s your thing), but the real meta-story here is the disintermediation of trust brokers.

The Apostille and the service providers around them is just one more sector in the crosshairs.