IBM Awarded Patent for ‘Self-Aware Token’

IBM has acquired a U.S. patent for a sort of “self-aware token” that may report its personal transaction knowledge.

Awarded by the U.S. Patent Workplace on Jan. 7, the patent outlines a ledger-based funds system that would make it simpler for particular person customers, companies and governments to trace and hint transactions made utilizing a cryptocurrency.

Dubbed the “self-aware token,” it’s designed to report all transaction knowledge when not getting used on a funds platform that IBM patented again in 2012. When the token rejoins the platform ecosystem at a later stage, it routinely uploads knowledge from any “off-line transactions.”

In accordance with the patent, the idea makes it attainable to create a “full lifecycle” for tokens that may embody knowledge on the fee location and quantities transacted, in addition to any data relating to earlier token holders. The token can’t retailer transaction knowledge itself, however would retailer it on some kind of private machine, like a cellphone or laptop computer, or alternatively a purpose-built database.

For IBM, the flexibility to find out the provenance of a token will help “bolster belief and viability” inside a brand new token-based financial system. Companies can affirm tokens haven’t been used for any felony actions; customers can guarantee they have not been falsified or corrupted at any stage; directors or regulators can construct profiles on events to implement related legal guidelines and laws.

“Such a system would represent a major enchancment to the artwork of monetary knowledge processing,” the patent continues. Self-aware tokens report knowledge by measuring their worth in opposition to the opposite asset concerned within the transaction, which is alleged to raised mixture and quantify values in opposition to different property, together with different cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies.

IBM believes the token may facilitate exchanges between completely different asset courses. As extra cryptocurrencies develop, the query of learn how to allow funds between in any other case various types of property turns into more and more important, the patent reads. By recording this transaction knowledge, “e-Currencies [could] function throughout disparate financial programs, fostering simpler taking part alongside sovereign currencies and different non-standard currencies.”

Final August, IBM gained a patent for a blockchain-based net browser that would shield person privateness. The agency’s work within the house is greater than theoretical, too, having launched its IBM Blockchain platform in 2017 and being a contributor to the Hyperledger venture.

Different corporations are additionally patenting ideas aimed to assist shut the hole between fiat and cryptocurrency. Jack Dorsey’s Sq. recieved a patent final week for a brand new funds system that routinely exchanges cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies.