Wells Fargo is for tokens, but against cryptocurrencies. Don't look for logic in this

On July 17, the American financial institution Wells Fargo filed a patent application for “systems and methods for managing tokenization on the blockchain.” In other words, this system will allow you to create a tokenized analogue of any value. For example, instead of creating a bank account, you can create a token.

In addition, the patent outlines plans to create and develop a banking “tokenization service provider” that will tokenize documents, photographs, videos, audio, and other means of digital storage of information. The content owner submits the digitized information, and the bank creates a token. 

The idea is to use the high level of security of blockchain technology to store tokenized data. The patent explains that tokenized information will be encrypted and not publicly available until the content owner wishes otherwise. 

In addition, this system will allow multiple authorized persons to access tokenized information. “Unlike the limited anonymous signatures supported by existing systems, our methods of operation will support single signatures, multiple signatures, as well as joint signatures,” the document states.

Last month, Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allair said that “the world is in the early stages of tokenizing any form of value.”

Wells Fargo is not the first, and certainly not the last, major financial institution to has applied for a patent related to blockchain technology. In January of this year, Bank of America filed at least 43 blockchain-related patents. Last week MasterCard received a patent to create a debit card that can be used to pay with both cryptocurrency and fiat. MasterCard has also received many blockchain patents.