Nchain Licensing Ag

Bassem Ammar

Craig Steven Wright

Dean Kramer

Wei Zhang

Martin Sewell

Jack Owen Davies

Owen Vaughan

Chloe Ceren Tartan

Jad Wahab

A method of validating transactions for recordal in a blockchain comprises receiving one or more transactions at a node of a blockchain network. For each received transaction a protocol for validating the transaction is applied. The protocol is configured to allow a termination opcode to be included in an output script of the transaction. The termination opcode is configured to, upon being executed by the node, a) terminate execution of the output script, and b) not to invalidate the transaction based only on the inclusion of the termination opcode in the output script. The protocol is also configured to disallow any instance of the termination opcode from being included in an input script of the transaction, said disallowing comprising the node at least invalidating the transaction if any instance of the termination opcode is included in the input script.

Protocol for validating blockchain transactions

According to a first aspect, there is provided a computer-implemented method of cryptographically linking multiple documents, having multiple electronic signature requirements, via a sequence of blockchain transactions, the method comprising: computing document signature data satisfying a first signature requirement for an existing document, the first signature requirement defined in a blockchain transaction containing or referencing the existing document; wherein the document signature data signs a portion of a linking transaction containing or referencing a supplementary document, the linking transaction comprising an input for validly spending a spendable output of the blockchain transaction, whereby the document signature cryptographically links the supplementary document with the existing document; and wherein the signed portion comprises multiple outputs of the linking transaction; wherein a first of the multiple signed outputs is spendable and associated with the existing document, the signed portion defining a second signature requirement for the existing document; and wherein a second of the multiple signed outputs is spendable and associated with the supplementary document, the signed portion defining a signature requirement for the supplementary document.

Electronic document signatures

A method of executing transactions of a blockchain network. A first transaction comprises at least a first output comprising a first locking script of a stack-based scripting language, the first locking script comprising a portion of the first locking script to be executed before a first instance of an opcode is executed. A second transaction comprises a first unlocking script that references the first output in the first transaction. Upon executing the first instance of the opcode, execution of the first locking script is terminated whilst not invalidating the first transaction. A first data element is read from at least one stack, wherein the first data element is generated during execution of the first unlocking script and the portion of the first locking script. The first data element as read from the at least one stack is supplied to an off-chain function, wherein the function is configured to generate a result based on at least said first data element.

Using blockchain transactions to provide off-chain functionality

A computer-implemented method and system is provided that maintains blocks of a blockchain across nodes of a sharded blockchain network, wherein each node is a member of one or more shards of a plurality of active shards. The method and system employ a given node that is a member of a particular subset of the plurality of active shards to generate data representing a new block of the blockchain and store the data representing the new block. Such data includes i) a list of transaction identifiers for transactions that are part of the new block and associated with the particular subset of the plurality of active shards, and/or ii) a Partial Merkle Tree for the new block.

Maintaining blocks of a blockchain in a partitioned blockchain network

A computer-implemented method of providing proof that a data item of a blockchain transaction exists on a blockchain, wherein the method comprises: obtaining, from a requesting party, target data item of a target blockchain transaction; obtaining the target blockchain transaction; obtaining a target Merkle proof for the target blockchain transaction, wherein a corresponding target Merkle root is contained within a block of the blockchain, and wherein obtaining the target Merkle proof comprises calculating an index of a target transaction identifier of the target blockchain transaction within a leaf layer of a corresponding target Merkle tree; and outputting at least the target Merkle proof for use by the requesting party as proof that the target data item exists as part of the target blockchain transaction on the blockchain.

Merkle proof entity

A method of executing a transaction of a blockchain. The transaction comprises at least one output comprising a locking script, and the locking script comprises an instance of a first opcode and one or more instances of a second opcode. Each instance of the second opcode separates portions of the locking script. Upon calling the instance of the first opcode, a first data element is read from at least one stack, the first data element being generated during execution of the locking script with an unlocking script of a different transaction. A first part of the locking script that follows an instance of the second opcode corresponding to the first data element is output.

In-script functions within a blockchain transaction

A computer-implemented method of validating a blockchain transaction is disclosed. The method comprises requesting at least one UTXO referenced by at least one respective input of the transaction from a member node of at least one shard comprising at least one UTXO, obtaining validity data of at least one UTXO from at least one node, and performing a validation check on at least one input using the validity data.

Partitioning a blockchain network

A computer-implemented method of partitioning a blockchain network into shards is disclosed. The method comprises identifying a parent blockchain transaction, the parent transaction defined by an output which corresponds to an input of a child blockchain transaction, and allocating the parent transaction and the child transaction to the same shard.

A computer-implemented method of partitioning a blockchain network into shards is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of identifying a transaction id of a blockchain transaction and allocating the transaction to a shard based on the transaction id.

Growing community of inventors

Lancaster, United Kingdom

Bassem Ammar