Le brevet délivré le 11 juillet 2017 par the US Patent and Trademark Office/USPTO (voir le lien ici ) prévoit la mise en place d’un token SETLcoin, et aussi d’une technologie qui permet l’échange de cette cryptomonnaies contre des devises, par exemple EUR ou USD, ou bien des actions ou obligations émises par des tiers (IBM est pris comme exemple).

Il décrit les positions comme des « PIC » : « Positional Item inside Cryptographic currency », qui sont les références des actifs qui sont émis par les émetteurs et référencés sur le réseau, en peer-to-peer, donc une blockchain.

Les possesions de SETLcoin ou autres PIC sont alors représentées dans les wallets des traders, en utilisant des techniques cryptographiques :

“…SETLcoin wallet holds multiple positionable items (e.g., a security item, such as a share), herein referred to as a Positional Item inside Cryptographic currency (PIC), and a position (i.e., a quantity of the PIC represented by an SETLcoin wallet). A PIC is an agreed upon reference used by the peer-to-peer network to refer to, e.g., a particular security. For example, « IBM » (the stock market symbol of the company by the same name) can also be a PIC used by the peer-to-peer network to refer to IBM stock. A PIC, in some embodiments, is determined (and invalidated) by an issuer. An issuer (e.g., a company, underwriter, municipality, government, etc.) can have multiple PICS to represent different types of securities. For example, IBM stocks can be represented by PIC « IBM-S » and IBM bonds by PIC « IBM-B ». In some embodiments, PICS are issued (and destroyed) by highly authoritative entities. For example, dollars available on the SETLcoin network represented by, e.g., PIC « USD » may be authoritatively issued by, for example, the U.S. Treasury. However, the described technology can issue PICS based on various other techniques (e.g., network node agreement, exchange regulation, lease or purchase, auction, etc.) and can be named based on, e.g., a company’s name, its market symbol, its branding, its security name, availability, or a preferred format (e.g., length, abbreviation, etc.).

An SETLcoin wallet or transaction can house a single security, as described above, or multiple denominations of the same security (e.g., 1 IBM-S SETLcoin valued at 100 IBM shares). SETLcoin wallets or transactions may also house multiple securities (e.g., 1 IBM-S SETLcoin and 2 GOOG-S SETLcoins). SETLcoins are exchangeable for, e.g., other SETLcoins and/or other cryptographic currencies (e.g., peercoins). For example, a single IBM-S SETLcoin may be exchangeable for one or more « GOOG » SETLcoins (i.e., Google shares), for 13,000 USD SETLcoins, 100 litecoins, and/or for 5 bitcoins.”

Personnellement, je trouve étonnant qu’un tel brevet soit accordé à Goldman Sachs sur une technologie qui est employée en open source pour de nombreux crypto-assets tels le Bitcoin ou l’Ether.