IBM Awarded Patent for ‘Self-Conscious Token’

IBM has obtained a U.S. patent for a kind of “self-aware token” that may document its personal transaction information.

Awarded by the U.S. Patent Workplace on Jan. 7, the patent outlines a ledger-based funds system that might 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 document all transaction information 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 robotically uploads information from any “off-line transactions.”

In accordance with the patent, the idea makes it potential to create a “full lifecycle” for tokens that may embrace information on the cost location and quantities transacted, in addition to any data concerning earlier token holders. The token can not retailer transaction information itself, however would retailer it on some type of private gadget, like a telephone or laptop computer, or alternatively a purpose-built database.

For IBM, the flexibility to find out the provenance of a token can assist “bolster belief and viability” inside a brand new token-based economic 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 rules.

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

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

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

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 robotically exchanges cryptocurrencies into fiat currencies.