Locks a message so it can only be opened after a chosen future time.
Time Capsule
Lock a message to the future. Timelock encryption using public randomness from the drand network – your secrets stay local and only unlock once the network reaches your chosen time.
Advanced timing details
Local time: —
Creating a reveal that becomes decryptable later without trusting one person to guard the key.
Offline storage where you cannot depend on outside network availability.
This tool contacts the public drand network to fetch randomness beacons only. Your message and keys never leave your browser.
Understand it
Learn the mental model before you trust the output.
Short, practical context that explains what the tool is for, how it works, and where people get it wrong.
In plain English
Time Capsule lets you encrypt now and unlock later. Instead of waiting for a person to reveal the key, the unlock depends on future public randomness that does not exist yet.
How it works
This tool uses the drand randomness network. Your message is locked to a future drand beacon round, and once that round arrives, the public beacon can be used to derive the decryption material.
Encrypt now, unlock when the future beacon arrives
Your message is tied to a future public randomness round, not to a password handoff by another person.
Where you'd use it
- Publishing a message or prediction that should become readable only later.
- Building timed reveals for games, research, or public commitments.
- Sharing a secret that should unlock at the same time for everyone.
Common mistake
People sometimes think drand is storing their secret. It is not. drand only provides future public randomness; your encrypted message still needs to be preserved separately.
History / fun fact
The strange part of timelock encryption is that the unlock value does not exist when you press encrypt. You are binding your message to a future event that the network has not produced yet.
Security note
Timelock encryption depends on the availability and integrity of the public randomness network. It is best for delayed release, not for situations where fully offline recovery is required.
Deeper look
What drand actually is
drand is a distributed randomness network run by multiple independent participants. Together they generate public randomness beacons at regular intervals.
Why no single operator can unlock early
The beacon is collectively generated. That means no one operator should be able to produce the future beacon value alone before the scheduled round arrives.