U.S. Patent 11157899 was awarded to Hiro Systems PBC on October 26, 2021 and is entitled “System and method for bootstrapping a separate proof of work chain.” The first named inventor is Aaron Blankstein of Chicago, IL. The abstract contains an overview of the patent disclosure:

An improved blockchain is described herein that allows nodes to optionally generate a proof of work nonce separate from the proof of work nonce present in a burn chain. Generation of the proof of work nonce requires the consumption of energy, and the value of the proof of work nonce can be mapped to an amount of energy consumption. Similarly, an amount of energy consumption can be mapped to an amount of a cryptocurrency. For example, the mapping may indicate how much cryptocurrency could have been produced by the node if the consumed energy was instead put to mining the cryptocurrency. Thus, the node can submit a block commit that indicates the separate proof of work nonce and the amount of cryptocurrency burned. The node can aggregate the mapped amount and the amount burned to determine a probability of the node being selected as a leader. Link to Full Patent

This blockchain patent was originally filed on May 28, 2019  as U.S. Patent Application 16/424272 at the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office. The application was them awarded a patent grant and published as U.S. Patent 11157899. The primary examiner was Dante Ravetti.

Hiro Systems PBC, who is the original assignee of this patent, has at least 4 total granted patents in the United States as of the date of this article. This blockchain patent has been cited 0 times by other U.S. patents according to our law firm research, and can be considered an innovative patent in the field of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

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