US 11,743,045 B2
Partitioning a blockchain network
Dean Kramer, London (GB); Martin Sewell, London (GB); and Bassem Ammar, Lancaster (GB)
Assigned to nChain Licensing AG, Zug (CH)
Appl. No. 17/51,070
Filed by nChain Licensing AG, Zug (CH)
PCT Filed Apr. 24, 2019, PCT No. PCT/IB2019/053381
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Oct. 27, 2020,
PCT Pub. No. WO2019/207502, PCT Pub. Date Oct. 31, 2019.
Claims priority of application No. 1806907 (GB), filed on Apr. 27, 2018; application No. 1806909 (GB), filed on Apr. 27, 2018; application No. 1806911 (GB), filed on Apr. 27, 2018; application No. 1806914 (GB), filed on Apr. 27, 2018; and application No. 1806930 (GB), filed on Apr. 27, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2021/0233065 A1, Jul. 29, 2021
Int. Cl. G06Q 20/06 (2012.01); G06Q 20/36 (2012.01); G06Q 20/38 (2012.01); G06Q 20/22 (2012.01); H04L 9/32 (2006.01); G06F 16/27 (2019.01); H04L 9/06 (2006.01); G06F 9/38 (2018.01); G06F 16/23 (2019.01); G06F 16/901 (2019.01); G06F 16/22 (2019.01); H04L 9/00 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 9/32 (2013.01) [G06F 9/3836 (2013.01); G06F 16/2246 (2019.01); G06F 16/2379 (2019.01); G06F 16/278 (2019.01); G06F 16/9027 (2019.01); G06Q 20/065 (2013.01); G06Q 20/0658 (2013.01); G06Q 20/223 (2013.01); G06Q 20/3674 (2013.01); G06Q 20/3678 (2013.01); G06Q 20/3827 (2013.01); H04L 9/0618 (2013.01); H04L 9/0643 (2013.01); H04L 9/3239 (2013.01); H04L 9/50 (2022.05); H04L 2209/56 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method of validating a first blockchain transaction in a blockchain network partitioned into a plurality of shards, each shard comprising at least one node, and each node in the blockchain network being a member node of least one of said shards, wherein:
every blockchain transaction in the blockchain network is allocated to only one shard, such that for each shard there is a UTXO set related to transactions in that shard to which only member nodes of that shard have access;
the method comprising:
requesting, by a first node in the blockchain network, at least one UTXO referenced by at least one respective input of the first blockchain transaction from at least one member node of the shard having the UTXO set comprising said at least one UTXO;
obtaining, by the first node, validity data of said at least one UTXO from a member node of the shard, wherein the validity data comprises an unlocking script and a locking script;
performing, by the first node, a validation check on said at least one respective input using the validity data; and
communicating, by the first node, a request for shard membership information of a node to another node.