Jack Dorsey’s Square has scored a potentially game-changing patent involving cryptocurrencies. The patent is for a fiat-to-crypto payments network and it comes on the heels of Square Crypto unveiling its Lightning Development Kit (LDK) for Bitcoin developers. Let’s take the patent, which was awarded on Jan. 21, first. It basically lets a user send a real-time payment in one currency, such as BTC, and gives the recipient the option to receive it in the currency of their choice, such as USD.
According to the patent filing:
“In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a request for payment associated with a transaction between a first user and a second user, where the request specifies a payment amount in a fiat currency and identifying an indication that the first user intends to satisfy the request for payment using a non-fiat instrument.”
In the filing, Square Crypto bemoans the slow pace of crypto adoption, blaming the fact that cryptocurrencies are “not widely accepted by most retail merchants or even by most online merchants.” Dorsey’s Square gets it, attributing the slow pace of adoption to slow bitcoin transaction times, which has been a difficult nut to crack. Square Crypto’s aforementioned LDK is a tool in the company’s arsenal that it plans to use to solve some of the issues still plaguing the Bitcoin network.
The patent is a major coup for Square’s crypto arm, which envisions expanding to include payments in additional asset classes.
Source: TwitterAs Mati Greenspan, Founder of QuantumEconomics.io, pointed out, the timing of Square Crypto’s bitcoin adoption push coincides with that of bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt, which is readying the launch of its own consumer and merchant app that will support similar payment transactions. Bakkt President Adam White took to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to disclose further details about the digital asset wallet.
Square Crypto’s LDK
The patent development followed the launch of Square Crypto’s aforementioned Lightning Development Kit, which is designed to “give wallet and application developers a convenient way to create custom experiences.” Square Crypto works with open-source wallet developers and came up with the idea for LDK after polling devs about how to accelerate the mainstream adoption of bitcoin with the premise of creating infrastructure for more wallets, not fewer. Chief among their desires was to experience greater flexibility when working with the Lightning Network. The top issue that LDK will solve for wallet devs is,
“Supporting multi-device, multi-application access to a single wallet.”
Basically, it’s meant to help devs integrate Lightning Network technology, which is the second-layer Bitcoin payment protocol designed to bolster BTC transaction times and lower fees. If all goes as planned, Jack Dorsey’s crypto team is convinced that,
“It’s only a matter of time until instant, low-fee bitcoin payments are as common as cash used to be.”
It’s no secret that the crypto industry continues to face hurdles surrounding Bitcoin’s user interface, security, privacy and scalability. Square Crypto’s LDK coupled with the new patent, however, is a one-two punch to critics who claim that bitcoin will never attain wide-scale adoption, such as Peter Schiff.