How to fold a Merkle path yourself, and why the root can't come from the proof file

There's one question worth asking about any timestamp proof file you're holding right now: when you verify it, what exactly are you comparing your computed root against, and where did that value come from? Real question, real answer, and it's coming. But it doesn't mean much until you've folded a Merkle path by hand once, so let's do that part first. What a proof file is asking you to do The setup is simple. You want evidence that a file existed by a certain time. Hashing it gives y