US 12,469,026 B2
Methods and devices for registering and authenticating miner identity in a blockchain network
Craig Steven Wright, London (GB); Alexander MacKay, London (GB); Wei Zhang, London (GB); Andrew James Mee, London (GB); and Steven Patrick Coughlan, London (GB)
Assigned to nChain Licensing AG, Zug (CH)
Appl. No. 17/609,661
Filed by nChain Licensing AG, Zug (CH)
PCT Filed May 5, 2020, PCT No. PCT/IB2020/054261
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Nov. 8, 2021,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/229949, PCT Pub. Date Nov. 19, 2020.
Claims priority of application No. 1906645 (GB), filed on May 10, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2022/0092592 A1, Mar. 24, 2022
Int. Cl. G06Q 20/38 (2012.01); G06Q 20/06 (2012.01); G06Q 20/40 (2012.01)
CPC G06Q 20/38215 (2013.01) [G06Q 20/065 (2013.01); G06Q 20/3829 (2013.01); G06Q 20/4014 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method of registering identity of a mining node on a blockchain in a blockchain network, comprising:
creating a validity-check transaction having a first output controlled by the mining node and containing a miner identifier;
propagating the validity-check transaction on the blockchain network; and
mining, by the mining node, a new block containing a generation transaction, wherein the generation transaction includes an output containing an information field that contains both the miner identifier and a reference to the validity-check transaction, and wherein the generation transaction is a coinbase transaction allocating a block reward to the mining node for mining the new block, the coinbase transaction having no input that references an unspent transaction output.