Patent ID: 7590602

Claim:
A method for effecting currency transactions between users over a network, wherein: A) a Currency Issuing Authority (CIA) provides one or more data packets to a first user, each of said data packets comprising information on its value, a unique identificator to verify the identity of the data packet, and authentication information to verify that the data packet has been generated by the CIA; B) receiving payment instructions from the first user by a CIA trusted server (CIAS) to transfer a sum to a second user, then: i) the CIAS accesses said first user's one or more data packets corresponding to said sum in an active data packets area, associated with the first user, said area is accessible to the CIA through the CIAS and is provided in a storage medium, said area comprising one or more of said data packets; ii) the CIAS verifies that said data packets corresponding to said sum (a) are authentic and (b) have not been previously used to effect a payment; iii) the CIAS deactivates said first user's data packets corresponding to said sum, by deleting them or marking them as spent; and iv) the CIAS issues to the second user one or more new data packets corresponding to said sum; and no public and/or private encryption key is exchanged between the first user and the second user.