PayPal Inc. has filed a patent application for a modular payment device that accepts bitcoin and other digital currencies.
The application, filed with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, includes a lengthy description of how it manages virtual currencies and it specifically names bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin. The application also describes physical characteristics of the device, and it includes an image of the device. Modular Payment Module
The application’s abstract describes a modular payment module. The module includes a chassis which has a modular device connector. A payment database in the chassis stores funding source information and security information.
A payment module engine in the chassis determines that the modular device connector has been connected to a device frame, and it retrieves identifying information from the device. The module then determines that the identifying information matches an authorized device identified by the security information in the database and, in response, enables the transmission of the funding source information to conduct a transaction. Integration With Bitcoin?
The application signals a possible bitcoin integration for PayPal, which the company hinted at in 2014.
It describes a system that includes multiple virtual currency cards, each of which corresponds to a specific virtual currency wallet.
The virtual currency system includes a virtual currency wallet; a non-transitory memory including instructions to provide a virtual machine that is configured to give access to the wallet; and one or more hardware processors coupled to the card and the memory, wherein one or more processors read instructions from the memory to perform operations.
Each virtual card has a different virtual currency wallet that stores one or more private keys that provide the ability to transfer the virtual currency associated with one or more public addresses.Each virtual card may include a TrueCrypt (or similar) linked folder that stores the virtual currency wallet […]
