Mastercard’s New Patent Aims To Make Blockchain Transactions Anonymous

Mastercard has been patenting new blockchain solutions left and right, for quite some time now. Previously, they have filed patents to apply fiat banking principles to crypto, multicurrency blockchain, allow bitcoin transactions on credit cards and many more.

The latest patent that they have filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is for a method of anonymizing transactions completed on a blockchain platform. It aims to tackle the issue of anonymity when it comes to blockchain.

The patent cites that “the use of one or more intermediary addresses to obscure the source and destination of funds in a blockchain transaction” will “increase anonymity of entities associated with blockchain addresses.”

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If anyone is worried about accountability and security issues, Mastercard reiterates that the nature of the blockchain is such that it is an immutable ledger and hence every transaction can be traced and followed back to the genesis block.

The company stated that they wish to make the transaction anonymous, and not just the user who is behind it. In that context they have stated that:

“The existing communications and attribution structure of blockchain technology such as Bitcoin require identification of where the transactions are emanating and terminating, in order to maintain the ledger. This creates a technical problem of competing interests within the technology.”

Mastercard is not the only company which is looking to solve the anonymity issue of Blockchain. Zcash(ZEC) and Monero(XMR) have also been designed with similar concerns in mind.

Back in June, Mastercard had filed for a blockchain related patent to verify the authenticity of consumer coupons, titled “Method and System for Authentication of Coupons via Blockchain.” Since then, they have come a long way in terms of experimenting with the technology and filing blockchin based patents.

(Read more about: Blockchain Scalability)