Verisign patents technology to prevent Bitcoin double spending

Rage Comment : The characteristics of Bitcoin cannot ensure whether it is used for double spending in transactions, which brings great obstacles to the widespread application of Bitcoin. Therefore, many experts choose to use Bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology to develop new digital currencies. Verisign, as a digital signature and security solution provider in the industry, has developed a solution to prevent double spending of digital currencies. The solution uses a monitor to feedback the use of keys and checks with the database to prevent such situations from happening. It is this kind of innovation that constantly discovers and solves problems that brings endless new ideas to the field of digital currencies.

Translation: Annie Xu

Verisign, a digital signature and security solutions provider, has recently applied for a patent for a technology that prevents double spending of Bitcoin. This technology can effectively detect and prevent double spending of digital currencies such as Bitcoin, protecting the interests of the payee.

Follow the WeChat public account "区块链笔Blockchain" and reply with the keyword "Verisign" to view and download the full text of this patent.

Most digital currencies use a single-use key that can only be transferred once in a valid transaction. When multiple transactions use a key, only one of them will be recognized and the others will be automatically rejected. This feature is crucial for the normal operation of transactions. It prevents people from copying keys for multiple transactions and making profits from them (remember, copy and paste is the most widely used function on all computers).

The patent application does not mention that the technology is specific to the digital currency industry, and it is currently named "System, device and method for detecting duplicate signatures in a single-use signature system." The application details possible application cases for the technology.

Cryptocurrency appears several times in the application because it is one of the main areas where such fraud prevention solutions are needed. Thanks to the characteristics of Satoshi Nakamoto's blockchain technology, solutions to prevent double spending have been around since 2008. The article that brought Bitcoin to the world marked the first double spending prevention solution in the history of digital currency. However, there are currently few challenges that prevent the built-in double spending prevention of blockchain from being applied in reality.

The blockchain technology in the digital currency platform relies on miners to create new blocks to update the ledger; therefore, the Bitcoin blockchain is huge and the transaction processing speed is extremely slow. Bitcoin recipients may have to wait for several minutes or even a day to confirm the transaction. This speed makes Bitcoin counter payments very unreliable. Imagine if someone who buys cigarettes or coffee needs to wait for an hour at the counter for the owner to confirm the transaction. This scene is indeed very strange.

The system designed by Burton S. Kaliski JR of Verisign Inc. prevents digital currency keys from being used more than once by checking existing records. Whenever a single-use key is used, a monitor receives a message. The system then retrieves the relevant record from the database and checks it against the information. If it is a first-time use, the transaction is allowed; if not, it is blocked.

The company filed a patent for the technology last September. Using the technology as an additional layer on top of the blockchain protocol would help transactions be completed instantly, without the need for blockchain confirmation.

We have not seen the end of innovation in the digital currency space. The open source nature of Bitcoin technology and its huge potential inspire innovators to continue exploring.