Secure crypto currency point-of-sale (pos) management

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016148198-A1
Application number	US-201414554758-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Nov 26, 2014
Priority date	Nov 26, 2014
Publication date	May 26, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal is equipped to process crypto currencies for transactions. The POS terminal generates a transaction-based digital wallet for a given transaction to receive a crypto currency payment for that given transaction. The transaction-based digital wallet, funded with the crypto currency for the given transaction, is transferred to a retailer's server where the crypto currency is transferred from the transaction-based digital wallet to a retailer's digital wallet for eventual exchange to a government issued currency.

First claim

1 . A method, comprising:
identifying, by a Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal, a crypto currency requested for payment to conclude a transaction at the POS terminal; obtaining, by the POS terminal, a transaction-specific digital wallet for receiving the crypto currency; and receiving, by the POS terminal, an amount of the crypto currency to conclude the transaction in the transaction-specific digital wallet.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein identifying further includes receiving a selection from an interface presented on a display of the POS terminal from a customer that identifies the crypto currency.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining further includes selecting the transaction-specific digital wallet from a list of available digital wallets.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein selecting further includes generating the list of available digital wallets on startup of the POS terminal.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining further includes dynamically generating the transaction-specific digital wallet based at least in part on a transaction identifier that uniquely identifies the transaction.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein obtaining further includes mapping the transaction-specific digital wallet to the amount and a transaction identifier that uniquely identifies the transaction.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving further includes sending a notification to a server that payment was received for the transaction in the transaction-specific digital wallet.

8 . The method of claim 1 further comprising, sending, by the POS terminal, the transaction-specific digital wallet to a server once funded with the amount of the crypto currency.

9 . The method of claim 1 further comprising, sending, by the POS terminal, the transaction-specific digital wallet to a server with other transaction-specific digital wallets for other transactions at a predefined interval.

10 . The method of claim 1 further comprising, sending, by the POS terminal, the transaction-specific digital wallet to a server with the amount of the crypto currency in response to a request made by the server for the transaction-specific digital wallet.

11 . A method, comprising:
receiving, at a server, a transaction-specific digital wallet funded with an amount of crypto currency, the transaction-specific digital wallet received from a Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal that concluded a transaction by receiving the amount as payment for the transaction; transferring, by the server, the amount from the transaction-specific digital wallet to a server digital wallet; and determining, by the server, when to exchange the amount from the server digital wallet to an equivalent amount in a government issued currency.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein receiving further includes requesting the transaction-specific digital wallet from the POS terminal.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein receiving further includes obtaining the transaction-specific digital wallet at the conclusion of the transaction at the POS terminal.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein receiving further includes receiving the transaction-specific wallet at a predefined interval from the POS terminal.

15 . The method of claim 11 , wherein transferring further includes transferring the amount from the transaction-specific digital wallet with other amounts from other transaction-specific digital wallets to the server digital wallet.

16 . The method of claim 11 , wherein transferring further includes transferring the amount at a preconfigured period of time.

17 . The method of claim 11 further comprising, maintaining, by the server, metrics associated with the transaction.

18 . The method of claim 11 further comprising, recycling, by the POS terminal, the transaction-specific digital wallet back to the POS terminal or another POS terminal with a mapping to the transaction removed for use with a different transaction.

19 . A system comprising:
a server having a server wallet manager; a Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminal having a POS wallet manager; the server wallet manager is configured and adapted to: i) execute on the server, ii) receive transaction-specific digital wallets for transactions conducted at the POS terminal; and iii) transfer sums of crypto currency out of the transaction-specific digital wallets to a single service digital wallet; and the POS wallet manager is configured and adapted to: i) execute on the POS terminal, ii) assign one of the transaction-specific digital wallets to a specific one of the transactions and receive an amount of the crypto currency into that transaction-specific digital wallet as payment for that specific transaction, and iii) send the transaction-specific digital wallets to the sever wallet manager.

20 . The system of claim 19 , wherein the POS wallet manager is further adapted and configured to one of: select from a list of available digital wallets for use within a specific transaction and generate each of the transaction-specific digital wallets as needed for each of the transactions.

Assignees

• Ncr Corp

Inventors

• Kelley Aaron Lloyd

Classifications

• G06Q20/3678 Primary

  e-cash details, e.g. blinded, divisible or detecting double spending · CPC title

• G06Q20/202

  Interconnection or interaction of plural electronic cash registers [ECR] or to host computer, e.g. network details, transfer of information from host to ECR or from ECR to ECR · CPC title

• G06Q20/065

  using e-cash · CPC title

• G06Q2220/00

  Business processing using cryptography · CPC title

• G06Q20/389

  Keeping log of transactions for guaranteeing non-repudiation of a transaction · CPC title