Mastercard Incorporated
Method and system for interacting public and private blockchains with controlled participation

Abstract:

A method for controlling participation in a blockchain based on time includes: storing participant profiles, each including a public key of a cryptographic key pair and a period of time; storing a blockchain comprised of a plurality of blocks, each including at a block header and data values; receiving a block submission from a specific computing system including a digital signature and a new data value; verifying the digital signature based on the public key stored in a specific participant profile related to the specific computing system; verifying that the specific computing system is eligible for participation in the blockchain based on the period of time included in the specific participant profile and a present time; generating a new block comprised of a block header and the new data value; and transmitting the generated new block to nodes associated with the blockchain.