Skip to main content
Have you been waiting for our Ramadhan Promo? How about this? Book for your photo shot and get 50% price slashed on all casual makeup and gele. Makeup: Glamby Zee Photography: Jessy Photos Graphics: SmartEx Designed: Francis Akujobi

Mastercard Hints at Plans for Blockchain Settlement System



Mastercard may be looking to integrate blockchain into its payments infrastructure.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a new application from the financial giant this week that outlines a solution for a "uniform settlement system" – one that would help ease some of the friction involved with business-to-business payments. Specific issues cited in the application include growing data storage demands and the overall volume of transactions.
Notably, Mastercard suggests in the text that such a system could include a blockchain-based ledger of transactions.
As the application explains:
"In some embodiments, the ledger may be a blockchain configured to store the associated data. ... In the system, the data values may include the purchase orders, invoices, transaction data, and other data stored in the ledger as discussed herein."
Mastercard clarified that the blockchain would be able to automatically note all changes made to the ledger, creating a verifiable and immutable record of all data. As a result, malicious users would be unable to modify transactions in the system.
The entry represents the latest intellectual property play by Mastercard that invokes blockchain, in a series of applications that goes back to 2014. Most recently, in August, the USPTO published an application related to cryptocurrency-based refunds.

Extracted from: http://www.coindesk.com/

Popular posts from this blog

Bitcoin in the Browser: Google, Apple and More Adopting Crypto-Compatible API

Developers at some of the top tech companies have created a browser API that could soon make it easier to buy goods and services online with cryptocurrency. The work, started by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) with the help of Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple and Mozilla, is a tangible step forward for a currency-agnostic web payment standard  first conceived in 2013. Equally, as bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies gain more momentum, the launch signifies the growing recognition of cryptocurrency as a payments technology. ADVERTISEMENT Indeed, the W3C has gotten more interested in blockchain technologies over the years, hosting its first ever blockchain workshop in June last year. But while participants were left with interest in standardizing and democratizing the technology's use, no formal work was decided upon then. That, however, has changed. Announced on Thursday, the API is currently  being implemented in browsers including Google's Chrome, M
Read more

What you should know about Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system called the first decentralized digital currency , since the system works without a central repository or single administrator. It was invented by an unknown programmer, or a group of programmers, under the name Satoshi Nakamoto and released as open-source software in 2009. The system is peer-to-peer , and transactions take place between users directly, without an intermediary. [13] :4 These transactions are verified by network nodes and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain . Besides being created as a reward for mining , bitcoin can be exchanged for other currencies, products, and services. As of February 2015, over 100,000 merchants and vendors accepted bitcoin as payment. Bitcoin can also be held as an investment. According to research produced by Cambridge University in 2017, there are 2.9 to 5.8 million unique users using a cryptocurrency wallet, most of them using bitcoin. On 1 Aug
Read more

Institutional Cryptoeconomics: A New Model for a New Century

Chris Berg, Sinclair Davidson and Jason Potts are with the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub in Melbourne, Australia. In this opinion piece, the authors discuss why blockchain may be more disruptive than the so-called 'general purpose technologies' that transformed society in recent centuries.  While cryptoeconomics is already a vibrant research field, the study of the blockchain must not be left solely to computer scientists and game theorists. The rollout of blockchain technology raises complex questions in economics, public policy, law, sociology and political economy. What we call "institutional cryptoeconomics" starts from a simple premise – the blockchain is not just a new general purpose technology, it is a new institutional technology. This may sound like a pedantic distinction, but the difference between these two conceptions is profound. General purpose technologies allow us to do what we already do better, faster and cheaper. Economists und
Read more