TL;DR
A TRUE certificate of authenticity moves with the item it protects. Sell a watch, gift a signed print or hand down a piece of jewelry that carries one, and the certificate transfers with it: the new owner's name replaces yours, the same verification link keeps working, and the underlying blockchain proof never changes. Nothing happens until the new owner confirms by email, so the certificate is never caught between two people. That confirmed handover is what turns a proof of authenticity into provenance, a record of who has owned the object, not just proof that it is real.
It means the certificate itself changes hands, not just the object it describes. A TRUE certificate of authenticity is tied to one named owner. Transferring it replaces that name with the new owner's, on the same certificate, at the same link, anchored by the same blockchain proof it always had.
This only works for certificates that were built to move. A watch, a painting, a numbered print or a piece of jewelry can change hands many times, so its proof needs to travel with it. A personal certificate such as a diploma cannot: it belongs to the person who earned it, not to whoever holds the link, so TRUE Documents never offers a transfer option on one. More on that distinction further down.
A certificate that only proves an object is genuine answers half the question a buyer actually has. The other half is who owned it before them, and in what order. Put the two together and you get provenance: not just that something is real, but a traceable record of everyone who has held it since it was made.
Provenance is worth defending. Global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods reached 467 billion US dollars in 2021, 2.3 percent of everything traded worldwide, according to a joint OECD and EUIPO study published in 2025. In the secondhand market the incentive runs the other way: buyers pay a premium for an item they can trust. A watch sold with its original box and papers, the paperwork equivalent of a TRUE certificate, can fetch 20 to 30 percent more than the same watch without them, according to provenance research from Kevin Francis Design. Resale itself has become a market in its own right: the secondhand luxury goods sector was valued at roughly 40 billion US dollars in 2025 and continues to grow faster than sales of new luxury goods, per IMARC Group's 2025 market report.
The transfer starts with whoever currently owns the certificate, using the personal link from the email TRUE sent when it was issued. A verification link that has been shared with someone else will not work here. Only the personal link identifies you as the owner.
That is the current owner's part done. What happens next depends on someone else.
The new owner receives an email with a button to confirm. Until they click it, the certificate is still yours, and nothing about it changes in the meantime.
Once they confirm, TRUE creates a new certificate in their name and retires yours. Every old link you shared, on a resale listing, in an email, on a business card, still resolves. It now simply opens the new owner's certificate instead of yours. Both steps run in the background rather than instantly, so allow some time between submitting the transfer and the confirmation email arriving, and again after the new owner confirms.
No. TRUE certificates that prove ownership of a transferable item, jewelry, art, collectibles, vehicles, anything that can change hands, carry the option. Personal credentials never do. A diploma, a professional license or a course certificate is proof about one named person, and it stays theirs regardless of who is holding the link. If Change ownership is missing from a certificate, that is usually why.
If you believe your certificate should be transferable and the option is missing, the fastest answer comes from the organisation that issued it, not from TRUE directly. They set the certificate type when they issued it, and they can confirm what applies to yours.
Open the certificate using the personal link from the email you received when it was issued to you, then scroll to the bottom of the page. If the certificate supports transfer, Change ownership appears there. A shared verification link will never show it, because that link does not identify you as the owner.
First check that you opened the certificate with your original personal link rather than a link someone shared with you. If the option is still missing, this particular certificate was not set up to be transferred, most often because it is a personal credential rather than proof of an item. Contact the organisation that issued it if you are unsure which applies.
Ask them to check their spam or junk folder first. If the email address was mistyped when you submitted the transfer, contact the organisation that issued the certificate so they can correct it.
Not by reversing it centrally. Once a transfer is confirmed, the certificate belongs to the new owner outright. To move it back, they start a new transfer to you the same way you started the first one.
No. Every link that ever pointed to your certificate keeps working after a transfer. It automatically opens the new owner's certificate instead of yours, so nobody holding an old link, on a listing, an invoice or a message, ends up with a dead page.
No. Ownership transfer only exists for certificates that prove something about an item rather than a person. A diploma, a license or a course credential is tied permanently to the individual who earned it, and TRUE keeps it that way even after a transfer request is attempted elsewhere in a person's life, such as a name change.
The listing posted years ago, the email sent when the item was sold, the QR code printed in an old catalogue: none of them break. They just start pointing at someone else.
Every organisation we work with started with the same question. Give us thirty minutes and we will show you what your own documents would be worth.
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