Coinbase CEO Receives Patent for Transacting Bitcoin via Email

Brian Amstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, has patented a system that allows users to transact Bitcoin directly using email.

First filed in March 2015 and awarded by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Dec. 17, the method enables users to make Bitcoin payments using email addresses tied to wallet addresses, without incurring transaction fees.

As the abstract for the invention indicates, email addresses serve as identifiers for users' wallet addresses within the system.

"Hot wallet functionality is provided that transfers values of some Bitcoin addresses to a vault for purposes of security. A private key of a Bitcoin address of the vault is split and distributed to keep the vault secure A vault has multiple email addresses to authorize a transfer of bitcoin out of the vault."

After a request is made to transfer Bitcoin out of the vault, confirmatory links are sent via email to the user(s) and typically takes 48 hours to clear.

In most cases, transfer requests between email addresses and their associated wallets within the system do not imply the charging of a miner's fee, as the mechanism is nested within a single host computer system.

In addition to these features, the proposed network would include a node that hosts a Bitcoin exchange where users can trade their Bitcoin for fiat currency.

While the appeal of a streamlined, email-based Bitcoin payments system is clear, news of the patent has so far been met with ambivalence on crypto Twitter.

The patenting and the 'vault' for holding unclaimed coins centralizes bitcoin transmissions... It's a no for me".

The email system nonetheless appears to align with Armstrong's stated ambitions for Coinbase's roadmap; in an interview this summer, he said he was looking beyond trading services and towards driving the universal adoption of cryptocurrencies in the global economy.