Blockchain Gift Card Token Transfer System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for transferring gift cards are prone to fraud, making them non-transferable, which limits their utility and transparency in digital asset transactions.
Innovation Solution
A system that issues tokens representing monetary value associated with gift cards, allowing users to manage and transfer these values using periodic variable authentication codes, with all transactions recorded on a public ledger like a blockchain, ensuring transparency and security.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If gift cards are made transferable using prior art methods, then the utility and versatility of gift cards is improved, but fraud risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a blockchain-based intermediary system that mediates gift card transfers. Instead of direct peer-to-peer transfers that are vulnerable to fraud, the system uses blockchain as a trusted intermediary to record and verify all transfer transactions, ensuring authenticity and preventing fraud while maintaining transferability
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical/digital transfer methods with a cryptographic blockchain system. The gift card transfer mechanism is substituted with blockchain-based token transfers, using cryptographic proof instead of conventional transfer protocols, thereby eliminating fraud vulnerabilities while preserving adaptability
2Loss of information
If all gift card transactions are recorded on a public ledger, then transparency is improved, but device complexity and implementation difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages the universal blockchain infrastructure to handle multiple functions: transaction recording, fraud prevention, transparency provision, and transfer verification. By using an existing multi-functional blockchain system rather than building a specialized ledger, the patent achieves transparency without proportionally increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The blockchain system operates autonomously to record and verify transactions without requiring complex centralized management. The decentralized nature of blockchain allows the system to self-maintain the public ledger, reducing the operational complexity that would otherwise be required to manage a transparent recording system
Data Source
AI summary
Disclosed is a method for providing fraud protection and transaction tracing for gift card accounts through use of a public blockchain ledger. Digital gift cards are associated with tokens which are passed between user accounts. The users do not obtain direct access to the debit codes assigned to the gift cards and are instead provided with variable authentication codes for use in merchant purchases. The variable authentication code is used by a merchant to obtain a reference to an actual debit code held by a web server. Numerous types of transactions are published to the blockchain ledger including initial purchases, reserving/claiming of debit codes, transfers of tokens between accounts, and depleting of gift card value associated with a token. Transactions published to the blockchain occur substantially simultaneously with a merchant purchase such that users may look up gift card values at any time to be assured each gift card is valid.