U.S. major retailer, Walmart recently announced about winning a patent for development of an electrical gridpowered by cryptocurrencies. The official information was published in a patent application by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which confirmed that in addition to Bitcoin other cryptocurrencies will be used for the grid as well.
The source also confirmed that the new system aims at helping companies to better manage consumption of energy as well as to regulate demand on an electrical grid via using a publicly distributed transactions ledger. Earlier it was reported that Walmart initially filed the patent in back December 2017.
According to the patent, both households and large organizations are able to use energy-consuming devices that are based on blockchain network. This means both of the parties can assign a specific amount of BTC or any other cryptocurrency that will be accepted, to each device of use. These devices can hence be used to purchase energy from a utility vendor.
“Each unit cryptocurrency may represent a unit or a portion of a unit of energy. For example, if 1 cryptocurrency unit is set to be equivalent to 1 kWh, the provider interface module 131 may receive a capped total amount of cryptocurrency of 800 for a month to spend on purchasing 800 kWh of electricity”, explains the document.
This patent was one of the many other various ones Walmart had applied for recently. The giant retailer has been looking for patents to integrate blockchain technology into its supply chain cycles. “A service that would record a customer’s purchases in a blockchain ledger, allowing the customer to resell the items on a sales platform using the record of purchase”, explains the source. Walmart currently deploys “Smart Package” patent. This patent uses a tool which is based on blockchain in order to track package contents, environmental conditions, location, and other details.
