Accenture recently filed a patent, which according to the company would speed up the blockchain transaction process through a specific hardware. In fact, it is the very hardware that the company wants to patent.
Accenture emphasizes that blockchain transactions depend on both software and hardware and it exactly hardware problems that the patent is set to tackle. Furthermore, the new hardware should solve not only scalability problems but security issues as well. The company doesn’t neglect security flaws, noting that with the evolution of technology, new kinds of cyber threats emerge as well.
An excerpt from the patent application reads:
“For example, all or parts of the implementations may be circuitry that includes an instruction processor, such as a Central Processing Unit (CPU), microcontroller, or a microprocessor; or as an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), Programmable Logic Device (PLD), or Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA); or as circuitry that includes discrete logic or other circuit components, including analog circuit components, digital circuit components or both; or any combination thereof.”
Notably, Accenture argues that execution instructions can be stored in various mediums including CDROM, optical disks, hard drives, flash memory, Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, Read Only Memory, and Random Access Memory.
The recent patent follows this year’s trend of big companies filing for blockchain-related patents. Moreover, this is not the first time Accenture files a blockchain patent. Two years ago the company had the controversial idea of launching a blockchain prototype which would allow administrators to erase, modify and edit blocks on the network.
Back then the Accenture executive Richard Lumb insisted that pure decentralization would negatively impact banks. In his own words:
“For decentralized cryptocurrency systems, such permanent accounting has been crucial in building trust and faith among participants. But for financial services institutions faced with a myriad of risk and regulatory requirements, absolute immutability is a potential roadblock.”
It will be interesting to see how Accenture puts their patent to practice. The crypto community has seen enough overhyped projects. Most of them promise two things - to solve the current scalability issues and to improve security. Accenture’s patent promises the same things but would it live up to the expectations?
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