diff --git a/codex/utils/digest.nim b/codex/utils/digest.nim
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a33a769d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/codex/utils/digest.nim
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+import pkg/libp2p/multihash
+
+template bytes*(mh: MultiHash): seq[byte] =
+  ## get the hash bytes of a multihash object
+  ##
+
+  mh.data.buffer[mh.dpos..(mh.dpos + mh.size - 1)]