Micropayment Aggregation via Tangle Network for Device Billing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing billing systems for device usage in shared environments, such as maker spaces, often lack efficiency and flexibility, as users are either locked into prepaid models or pay a flat fee regardless of usage, which can be inefficient for both users and operators.
Innovation Solution
A system utilizing a transparent data storage system, like blockchain or Tangle, to aggregate and bill device usage based on user credentials and usage parameters, allowing for pay-per-use billing and ensuring auditable transactions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If traditional prepaid cards or flat-rate membership fees are used for device usage billing, then users can access hardware devices, but the system becomes inefficient for both users and operators due to mismatched payment structures with actual usage patterns
Solution Approach 1:
The system changes the billing parameter from fixed flat-rate membership fees to variable pay-per-use pricing based on actual device usage metrics. Usage parameters such as time duration, amount of resource consumed, and device type are captured and used to dynamically calculate fees, allowing the billing structure to adapt to actual usage patterns rather than forcing users into predetermined payment categories.
Solution Approach 2:
The billing system transitions from static prepaid models to dynamic real-time billing. Usage transactions are continuously captured and recorded in the transparent data storage system, with fees calculated and aggregated based on actual usage occurring at any given moment. This dynamic approach allows users to pay only for what they actually use, improving both efficiency and flexibility.
2Measurement precision
If individual micropayment transactions are processed for each device usage event, then accurate billing is achieved, but the complexity and overhead of transaction processing increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple individual usage transactions are merged and aggregated into consolidated billing statements. The transparent data storage system collects numerous small usage events from various devices and users, then aggregates these transactions by user over specified time periods, producing single consolidated bills rather than processing each micropayment separately. This reduces processing complexity while maintaining precise tracking of individual usage events.
Solution Approach 2:
Usage transactions are preliminarily captured, validated, and recorded in the transparent data storage system at the time of usage, but billing aggregation and statement generation are performed later in batches. This preliminary capture ensures accurate tracking of each usage event while deferring the complex aggregation and billing communication until organized groups of transactions are ready, reducing immediate processing overhead.
3Ease of operation
If a centralized billing system is used to track and aggregate device usage, then simplified user interaction is achieved, but the system becomes vulnerable to fraud and lacks transparency
Solution Approach 1:
A transparent data storage system acts as an impartial intermediary between users, device operators, and billing processors. This distributed ledger technology records all usage transactions immutably and transparently, allowing any participant to verify the accuracy of billing without trusting a centralized authority. The intermediary nature of the blockchain ensures that no single entity can manipulate billing records, maintaining both user convenience and system trustworthiness simultaneously.
Solution Approach 2:
The system makes the previously invisible billing process visible and verifiable through transparent recording on the blockchain. All usage transactions are recorded in a publicly accessible ledger that users can audit, changing the transparency level from opaque centralized processing to fully visible distributed verification. This allows users to confirm their usage and billing accuracy independently, building trust while maintaining ease of operation.
4Adaptability or versatility
If credit card processing is used for aggregated billing, then user payment options are expanded, but transaction fees for operators increase
Solution Approach 1:
Users preliminarily load funds into their digital wallets using traditional payment methods like credit cards, but subsequent device usage transactions are settled using cryptocurrency tokens from the transparent data storage system. This preliminary funding allows users to have payment options expanded while the actual micropayment transactions occur with lower-fee cryptocurrency, reducing operator fees on high-volume small transactions while maintaining versatile payment options.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a digital copy of the billing process using blockchain technology that eliminates the need for traditional credit card processing for each transaction. Instead of repeatedly processing credit card transactions with associated fees, the system uses a single cryptocurrency wallet funding event followed by fee-free or low-fee blockchain-based micropayments for each usage event, copying the payment functionality while reducing transaction costs.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for billing device usage through a data storage system and aggregation includes: receiving, in a device controller, user credentials for one of a plurality of users; detecting, by the device controller, usage parameters of a hardware device; submitting, by the device controller, a new usage transaction for usage of the hardware device to a data storage system including the user credentials and a usage fee based on the usage parameters; receiving, by an aggregator node, a plurality of usage transactions from the data storage system including the new usage transaction where each usage transaction includes user data and a fee amount; generating, by the aggregator node, an aggregated bill for each of the users including based on the fee amount included in each usage transaction associated with the respective user; and transmitting, by the aggregator node, each aggregated bill to a computing device associated with the respective user.