The asset is hashed, that hash is stamped as a leaf into the public transparency log, and the returned markovian-provenance/v1 record is embedded in the C2PA manifest as a namespaced assertion, com.markovianprotocol.provenance.v1. The same asset bytes are now bound twice: once by the C2PA claim signature, once by the witnessed log record.
The C2PA claim signature attests who signed the manifest. The Markovian record attests that the asset bytes existed at a point in time, anchored to Bitcoin. Neither asserts the content is accurate. A stamp proves data was committed at a time, not that it is correct.
Markovian adds nothing to authorship, that is the C2PA signature's job. What it adds is an independent timestamp with no single certificate authority, inclusion in a transparency log cosigned by independent witnesses, an account-free public verifier, and a property a C2PA manifest does not provide on its own: survival of stripping.
A real image was stamped, the record embedded as the assertion, and the C2PA manifest signed and validated. The asset hash is recorded in the public transparency log, so the bare bytes verify independently of the manifest.
A C2PA manifest is metadata embedded in the file, and it can be stripped by a re-encode or an export. When that happens, the Content Credential is gone. The Markovian record is not in the file, it is in the public transparency log, keyed to the hash of the asset bytes. Anyone holding the stripped file can hash it and find the same record.
This is the additive case for the door. C2PA is the rich credential while it is attached. Markovian is the durable anchor that outlives it.
The proof above is signed with a C2PA development certificate, so a strict C2PA verifier will report the signer as not on the production trust list. That is expected, and it does not change what the Markovian record shows: trust here is carried by the witnessed, Bitcoin-anchored log record and the public verifier, not by the C2PA certificate. A production deployment that wants a trusted Content Credential badge uses an end-entity certificate from a conforming certificate authority. The Markovian assertion and its verification are identical either way.
A C2PA-aware reader inspects the manifest and the embedded assertion. The public verifier returns the provenance record behind the asset hash, with no account and no dependency on this site.