US 12,443,927 B2
Privacy-preserving gridlock resolution
Shengjiao Cao, Singapore (SG); Yuan Yuan, Singapore (SG); Yanyan Hu, Singapore (SG); and Karthik Nandakumar, Singapore (SG)
Assigned to International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed by International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US)
Filed on Mar. 27, 2019, as Appl. No. 16/365,778.
Prior Publication US 2020/0311695 A1, Oct. 1, 2020
Int. Cl. G06Q 20/40 (2012.01); G06Q 20/02 (2012.01); G06Q 20/38 (2012.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01)
CPC G06Q 20/027 (2013.01) [G06Q 20/389 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computing system for decentralized and privacy-preserving gridlock resolution in a blockchain-based network, the computing system comprising:
a storage device configured to store a blockchain ledger; and
a processor configured to execute a loop via a blockchain smart contract installed on the blockchain ledger, wherein the loop comprises:
receive, via the blockchain smart contract, a plurality of gridlock resolution messages from a plurality of blockchain peers, respectively, wherein
the plurality of blockchain peers corresponds to participants of a gridlocked payment network, and
the plurality of gridlock resolution messages comprises:
a plurality of subsets of local payments generated from a set of payments stored in a queue of the plurality of blockchain peers, respectively,
a plurality of Pedersen commitments that conceals account balances of the plurality of blockchain peers, respectively and enables verification of net settlement conditions, and
a plurality of zero-knowledge proofs that validates, that the plurality of subsets of local payments results in positive post-balances for accounts of the plurality of blockchain peers, respectively, without account data being revealed for the accounts of the plurality of blockchain peers;
generate, via the blockchain smart contract, a global nettable set by aggregation of the plurality of subsets of local payments from the plurality of gridlock resolution messages, respectively;
publish, via the blockchain smart contract, the global nettable set as a cryptographically secured block to the blockchain ledger;
execute, via the blockchain smart contract, a decentralized blockchain consensus process with the plurality of blockchain peers based on the published global nettable set, wherein
the execution of the decentralized blockchain consensus process is to verify and approve the global nettable set, and
each blockchain peer of the plurality of blockchain peers evaluates whether the global nettable set satisfies certain local constraints;
determine, via the blockchain smart contract, based on the decentralized blockchain consensus process, that at least one blockchain peer of the plurality of blockchain peers refuses to consent to the global nettable set;
iteratively execute the loop, via the blockchain smart contract, based on the determination that the at least one blockchain peer refuses to consent;
generate additional global nettable sets utilizing different gridlock resolution messages from the plurality of blockchain peers until each blockchain peer of the plurality of blockchain peers agrees to an optimum global nettable set via the decentralized blockchain consensus process;
endorse the optimum global nettable set, via the blockchain ledger, based on the agreement of each blockchain peer of the plurality of blockchain peers to the optimum global nettable set; and
trigger automatic execution of payments included in the optimum global nettable set to resolve the gridlocked payment network without requirement of a central authority.