Mastercard received a patent for anonymous transactions

Despite its criticism of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, Mastercard was awarded another patent this week related to distributed ledger technology. However, this particular patent raises many questions.

The patent, issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Thursday, describes the mechanism for an anonymous transaction system on the blockchain. Mastercard applied for this patent back in December 2016.

According to Mastercard, the transparent nature of blockchain remittances is an obstacle and a barrier to its general adoption. For example, a person may want to purchase a gift without anyone knowing about it. In addition, many companies that are required to provide customer information to third parties will not be able to make such a payment.

From the patent entry:

“Thus, since the issue of a technical solution to the problem is more pressing than ever, we propose a solution in which these transactions will be public, but the transaction itself will be completely anonymous, and the sender will be impossible to track.”

There is a separate subclass of cryptocurrencies that have set themselves the main task of creating an anonymous digital currencies such as Monero and Zcash. The Bitcoin Lightning network should also enhance privacy. 

However, Mastercard wants to approach the issue, on the one hand, without using public registries, and on the other, to be able to provide information about illegal transactions to law enforcement agencies without revealing the personal data of its customers. 

Additionally, while cryptocurrencies enable peer-to-peer transactions, the system offered by Mastercard still relies on a third-party processing server - that is, an intermediary.

According to CCN, in the last few weeks Mastercard has received many patents. One of them, received this month, was created to reduce prices and make it more convenient to pay for public transport.

According to ccn.com