Patent Publication Number: US-2019172024-A1

Title: System and Method For Decentralized Digital Currency Issuance, Secure Transfer and De-Issuance

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This applications claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional 62/595,187, filed Dec. 6, 2017, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention is in the technical field of digital currency. More particularly, the present invention is in the technical field of decentralized digital currency issuance, secure transfer and de-issuance. 
     Conventional payment issuance systems utilize credit and debit cards. These conventional systems rely primarily on Automated Clearing House transfer of funds from one account to the other to settle payments, which is slow and transactions can be reversed. 
     Digital currencies have emerged as a recent alternative to these conventional payment issuance systems. A digital currency is a type of digital money which is issued and usually controlled by its developers, and used and accepted among the consumers of a specific virtual community. Most digital currencies are crypto currencies, for example Bitcoin. 
     However, digital-currencies have inherently unstable prices, and are inefficient for use as everyday purchase money. Most digital currencies have a set amount or total supply, and these ‘coins’ are freely traded on exchanges with a free-floating price. 
     What is needed is digital currency that is expandable and contractible based on user demand, and system maintains a stable price of the digital currency, equivalent to the USD or the underlying national currency or other real world asset, such as gold, thus eliminating risk associated with fluctuating valuations of digital assets. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present disclosure is a system and method for decentralized digital currency issuance, secure transfer and de-issuance. The system delivers instant nonreversible delivery of digital currency. In one embodiment, this digital currency is eDollars®, a cryptographically signed receipt or proxy for a dollar on deposit in a Financial Institution, or under the purview of an Insurance Company, Financial Services Company or Investment Manager. 
     It can be appreciated that this method gives the owner of the digital currency control over the digital currency, without necessarily owning or controlling the deposit, and that end user may not even have an account at a financial institution. In a further embodiment, the system allows for the digital currency be issued on demand, whenever the consumer, merchant, nonprofit or financial institution wants to, with no centralized authority deciding on whether the user is allowed to issue the digital currency or not. The present disclosure thus delivers to users faster, more secure and less expensive real-time payments and digital asset transfer. 
     In a further embodiment, anytime users would prefer to use digital currency in a transaction, the system allows them to instantly issue eDollars or e-currencies as they see fit. Furthermore, anytime members who are approved to de-issue eDollars or e-currencies wish to convert into a USD or bank deposit, they can choose to do so as they see fit, without any central authority stopping them, or determining the supply. The system maintains a stable price of the digital currency, equivalent to the USD or the underlying national currency, eliminating risk associated with fluctuating valuations of digital assets. 
     In a further embodiment, a Dual Payment System enables consumers to register their existing debit cards or checking accounts, and then use the system to quickly and easily complete in-store, online or delivery payments, including for cash intensive or high risk industries. Merchants can only send payment requests, and members always authorize transactions on their phone, eliminating the sources of most transaction fraud. 
     The system also allows the digital currency to be de-issued, with the digital currency being destroyed and the underlying funds being credited or deposited instantly back into a bank account whenever the owner of the digital currency decides. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
       These and other objects, features and characteristics of the present embodiments will become more apparent to those skilled in the art from a study of the following detailed description in conjunction with the appended claims and drawings, all of which form a part of this specification. In the drawings: 
         FIG. 1  is a flowchart of a process for utilizing digital currency according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. 
         FIG. 2  is a flow-diagram of steps of a method according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. 
         FIG. 3  is a system architecture according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     In this description, references to an “embodiment” mean that the particular element, function, structure or feature being described is included in at least one embodiment of the system introduced here. Uses of this phrase in this disclosure do not necessarily all refer to the same embodiment. On the other hand, the embodiments described are not necessarily mutually exclusive. 
     Introduced here is a system directed to tools, interfaces, and architectures for providing digital currency related services (“the system”). The end user interface for providing digital currency related services (hereinafter referred to as “Seedpay application”) can be implemented in a number of configurations, e.g., as an online application that can be accessed from an end user browser via a communication network such as the Internet, or an application that can be downloaded to and executed on user devices. The user devices can include devices such as a desktop computer; mobile devices such as a mobile phone, a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop; or other computing devices that are capable of executing mobile applications. Further, the Seedpay application can be accessed on various operating systems, including iOS, Mac, Android, and Windows. The system may utilize a Web Application, Mobile Applications and Blockchain (such as Ethereum blockchain) technology to deliver this solution, or additional technologies may be used in the future to continue to deliver eDollars. 
       FIG. 1  is a flowchart of a process for utilizing digital currency transactions in a situation where a consumer wishes to pay for an item at a merchant store with e-currency according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The digital currency can be, for example, an eDollar, a digital USD (which can be represented by a token) that can be securely transferred electronically in real time, nearly instantly. 
     At step  102 , upon a customer registration at a merchant, the consumer selects a funding method, which can be a credit, or debit card, or a checking account, or other liquid or digital assets. It can be appreciated that the customer has access to a wide variety of funding methods. In one embodiment, the registration further comprises a KYC verification. 
     At step  104 , if a consumer wished to pay with an e-currency such as eDollars, they inform the merchant. This can be done through the Seedpay system, wherein consumer informs the merchant they want to pay with ‘Seedpay,’ via a web app, payment terminal, or similar device. 
     At step  106 , the merchant sends the consumer a payment request, and at step  108  the consumer authorizes or declines the payment request using a smartphone notification system. At step  110 , the system secures authorization, or a ‘good funds guarantee’, and the system instantly issues an equal amount of Digital Currency and places them in the consumer&#39;s cloud account, which they access using the mobile phone. At step  112 , the consumer completes payment using their digital currency, and at step  114  the merchant receives digital currency, while the U.S. dollars are transferred into a Bank Account, Trust Account, Insurance Company, Financial Services Company or under the purview of a licensed Investment Manager. This is known as the system “dual payment” system. 
     The merchant is then able to immediately spend their eDollars, or use them to complete payment. For example, they can spend eDollars with other merchants who are signed up in the system. In a unique feature of the present disclosure, if and when the merchant decides they have excess digital currency, then at step  116  they can instantly de-issue and convert into a deposit at a financial institution, and the money is transferred from the Bank Account, Trust Account, Insurance Company, Financial Services Company or Investment Manager and deposited into their business account, and is available for use or withdrawal in 3-5 minutes, or instantly with a deeper technical integration with the financial institution&#39;s core banking software platform. 
     Referring now to the invention in more detail, shown in  FIG. 2  is a flow-diagram of steps of a method utilizing the “dual payment method” of the present invention. At step  202 , the customer wishes to make a purchase at a point of sale and has elected to pay with e-currency. At step  204 , the system charges the customer in regular currency. At step  206 , the system secures authorization, or a ‘good funds guarantee’, and the system instantly issues an equal amount of Digital Currency to a Seedpay eDollar master account  208  in 1:1 ratio as that the currency put into the trust account  210 . Then at step  212  the merchant  214  is paid in an equivalent amount of eDollars. 
     Referring now to  FIG. 3  wherein a system architecture according to an embodiment of the present disclosure is shown, the Seedpay system  300  is shown in more detail. A merchant  302  supplies a product  304  to a consumer  306 , who is charged $40 USD from credit card  308  which is then deposited into trust account  310 . Trust account  310  issues an equivalent amount of eDollars from eDollars Master Account  312 , in this case $40 in eDollars, to merchant eDollar account  314 . The merchant is able to immediately spend these eDollars, or use them to complete payment. In this example, the merchant desires to pay an electric company $25, so it initiates a request to Seedpay bill pay  316  which will pay back the master account $25 eDollars in block  318 . The credit union then issues an equivalent amount of USD in electronic payment  320  to the electric company  322 . 
     It can be appreciated that the digital currency is built on a system blockchain and implanted as an eDollar token. The system blockchain eliminates currency risk and creates a complete chain of custody by maintaining a complete history of every eDollar token. In a further embodiment, eDollars are only created by approved vendors in order to complete a transaction for an exchange of goods and services. In one embodiment, the system maintains a KYC Complaint Chain-of-Custody. In a further embodiment, the system implements a real-time machine learning compliance engine that reviews and maintains appropriate oversight on all of system merchants, with changes in status being reported daily. 
     The various participants and elements described herein may operate one or more computer apparatuses to facilitate the functions described herein. Any of the elements in the figures, including any servers or databases, may use any suitable number of subsystems to facilitate the functions described herein. 
     Specific details regarding some of the above-described aspects are provided above. The specific details of the specific aspects may be combined in any suitable manner without departing from the spirit and scope of embodiments of the technology. For example, back end processing, data analysis, data collection, and other transactions may all be combined in some embodiments of the technology. However, other embodiments of the technology may be directed to specific embodiments relating to each individual aspect, or specific combinations of these individual aspects. 
     It should be understood that the present technology as described above can be implemented in the form of control logic using computer software (stored in a tangible physical medium) in a modular or integrated manner. While the present invention has been described using a particular combination of hardware and software in the form of control logic and programming code and instructions, it should be recognized that other combinations of hardware and software are also within the scope of the present invention. Based on the disclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skill in the art will know and appreciate other ways and/or methods to implement the present technology using hardware and a combination of hardware and software 
     Any of the software components or functions described in this application, may be implemented as software code to be executed by a processor using any suitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perl using, for example, conventional or object-oriented techniques. The software code may be stored as a series of instructions, or commands on a computer readable medium, such as a random access memory (RAM), a read only memory (ROM), a magnetic medium such as a hard-drive or a floppy disk, or an optical medium such as a CD-ROM. Any such computer readable medium may reside on or within a single computational apparatus, and may be present on or within different computational apparatuses within a system or network. 
     The above description is illustrative and is not restrictive. Many variations of the technology will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of the disclosure. The scope of the technology should, therefore, be determined not with reference to the above description, but instead should be determined with reference to the pending claims along with their full scope or equivalents. 
     In some embodiments, any of the entities described herein may be embodied by a computer that performs any or all of the functions and steps disclosed. 
     One or more features from any embodiment may be combined with one or more features of any other embodiment without departing from the scope of the technology. 
     A recitation of “a”, “an” or “the” is intended to mean “one or more” unless specifically indicated to the contrary. 
     All patents, patent applications, publications, and descriptions mentioned above are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for all purposes. None is admitted to be prior art. While the foregoing written description of the invention enables one of ordinary skill to make and use what is considered presently to be the best mode thereof, those of ordinary skill will understand and appreciate the existence of variations, combinations, and equivalents of the specific embodiment, method, and examples herein. The invention should therefore not be limited by the above described embodiment, method, and examples, but by all embodiments and methods within the scope and spirit of the invention as claimed.