Visa Debuts Bitcoin Proof-of-Concept for Car Leasing

Coindesk ^ | 10/27/15 | Stan Higgins

[Another Post-American]

Visa and DocuSign unveiled a new proof-of-concept this week that leverages the bitcoin blockchain for recordkeeping.

The project, outlined in a 26th October blog post and debuted at Money20/20 in Las Vegas, focuses on digitizing the process of leasing a car. Bitcoin transactions are used to create a digital fingerprint for each vehicle, with new transactions published throughout the leasing process.

"From the driver's seat, the customer then chooses the lease options for the car – low, mid or high mileage, for example and DocuSigns the leasing contract right there and then. This is all in turn updated on the blockchain,” the post explains.

“They then choose their insurance options in the familiar way – evaluating by coverage, deductible and other factors," it continues. "They would again DocuSign the agreements, and the blockchain would again be updated.”

Visa is involved through its technology innovation arm, which has been working with bitcoin and the blockchain for months. The company is also an investor in DocuSign.

Other elements of the proof-of-concept involve Visa’s credit cart network and some of DocuSign’s document management technology in a bid to connect the leased car and further digitize the leasing process. DocuSign released a YouTube video that shows a step-by-step demonstration, including instances in which information is published via the bitcoin blockchain.

DocuSign and Visa did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

[Another Post-American]

This short article is an example of the use of blockchains to securely record information in a tamper-proof manner. Another example is a project in Honduras to record land titles on a blockchain. (Historically some Latin American countries have had serious problems with corruption regarding land titles, a problem which should be put to rest by such a project.)

So long as the blockchain is adequately secured - that is, by being based on a sufficiently valuable cryptocurrency like bitcoin - information embedded in it will be immutable once recorded. Already there are cryptocurrency startups that offer information recording for a modest fee. For example, you can take a hash of a photo or piece of art or music you've created and have it timestamped in a blockchain, proving your ownership at that date. It's estimated that the value of such services potentially runs into the billions of dollars, and that's just one small aspect of cryptocurrency, just an aside as it were.

[Another Post-American]

Ping!

[Another Post-American]

Ping!

[Another Post-American]

Sorry, for some reason I’m getting a warning message on my Chrome browser that FreeRepublic is harboring malware and my attempts to bypass that led me to double-posting the ping. But what’s up with that? I rather doubt there’s any malware here.

[Another Post-American]

Sorry, for some reason I’m getting a warning message on my Chrome browser that FreeRepublic is harboring malware and my attempts to bypass that led me to double-posting the ping. But what’s up with that? I rather doubt there’s any malware here.

[Dilbert San Diego]

Can somebody explain what bitcoin is? I’ve gone into Google but am still confused.

If somebody can explain it to me like I’m 6 years old I would appreciate it. I obviously just don’t grasp what it is, or how if you have bitcoin you will be able to spend it.

[gaijin]

Thank you for your great ping list..!

[Boogieman]

Ok, well bitcoin is just a currency, but a private one, not one with any government backing. So essentially, it’s kind of like when private banks used to issue their own banknotes that could be used as currency.

The difference is in the medium of exchange. Instead of trading little pieces of paper to represent the currency, people trade little bits of digital data to represent the currency. The data is encrypted and records of the transactions are designed to be as secure as possible. So, you can’t just copy a bitcoin and pass it off, because there are associated records (called a blockchain) that keep track of everywhere that particular bitcoin has been traded. A bitcoin without a valid blockchain is worthless, and so basically, a bitcoin can’t just appear out of thin air.

[Dilbert San Diego]

So how do I get a bit coin to get started? Do I have to buy bitcoins with American money to have money in the bitcoin bank?

[Sasparilla]

In gold and silver we trust. Owners who have it in hand never have to worry about hack attacks. It is not subject to power failure or grid failure. And, it will never be worth zero. US mint Silver Eagles can be bought now for about $21.00.
Silver rounds are about $17.00.

[Boogieman]

Well, you need a bitcoin “wallet” from one of the companies that issue them. They keep your bitcoins secure for you, kind of like a bank, and you use the wallet to make your transactions. Then you can buy bitcoins from an exchange and transfer them to the wallet.

Here’s some info on all that stuff:
https://bitcoin.org/en/getting-started

[Dilbert San Diego]

Thanks for the info. Sounds interesting.

[PAR35]

Will it be as easy for the insiders to steal the car as it is for them to loot the other Bitcoin vaults?

[PAR35]

They keep your bitcoins secure for you, kind of like a bank, and you use the wallet to make your transactions.

Then they say the vault was hacked, and your money, but not their money, is gone.

[Jet Jaguar]

Ping.

[Boogieman]

Sure, gold is great, but really I’d say you are talking two different ballparks.

You buy gold and silver if you want a safe, long term store of value, or a hedge against inflation, or currency instability, stuff like that. Bitcoins or digital currency don’t compete in that area, but are designed more for convenience and security in commerce. No matter how good gold is at securing your wealth, if you had to haul it around with you to buy stuff, it would be less secure at that purpose than bitcoins.

[Boogieman]

True, there’s certainly some risks as we have seen.

Personally, I’m waiting to see how these things develop. I think there is a commercial incentive for the companies to keep increasing the security and stability, because with currency, confidence is everything. Until people are really confident that their bitcoins won’t vanish, the companies are losing revenue. So I bet eventually they’ll work out the flaws even without a lot of regulation forcing them to.

[Another Post-American]

Here's a good newbie guide explaining a lot about what bitcoin is and how it works: A Beginner's Guide to Bitcoin.

Here's my own explanation: bitcoin was invented in late 2008 (and launched in early 2009) by an anonymous cryptographer who went by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It exists in the form of a ledger distributed amongst thousands of computers (miners), who share in updating the ledger and keeping it in sync.

Every 10 minutes (on average) a new block of transactions are added, and a miner is rewarded with a set amount of bitcoins (the reward halves every 4 years). Hence the term "blockchain" for the ledger.

Each block is cryptographically sealed to the previous blocks, such that, one accepted, no one can create an alternate blockchain that will be accepted.

The ledger records bitcoin ownership based on public keys, which are generated from private keys held by each bitcoin owner. You can share your public keys freely, as they can only be used to deposit bitcoin, not to send it to someone else. (For example, one of my keys is 19pMAfnS1prHg34k4ZQHKJrmMPkuqbXDoe if anyone is feeling generous :-)

Once it comes time to use your bitcoin, your bitcoin wallet provides a cryptographic hash of the transaction using your private key, proving you are the true owner of the public key in question. Your transaction is broadcast to the network and is added to the next block for a trivial fee to the miners (less than 3 cents at this writing, and you can sometimes do it free, especially if you are in no hurry). The miners are thus paid in block rewards and transaction fees, and in return they provide security to the bitcoin network, making it realistically impossible for any one party to corrupt the blockchain.

(OK, I assumed you were a _really_ bright 6 year old... maybe you should just start with Piggycoin instead! :-)

[W.]

I was at a gun show in Maumee OH about 20+ years back, and a guy had a good size pile of 1 ounce silver bars in a case for sale. I bought one for $5, he had them priced @ 1/$5, 3/$10, 7/$20, etc. He offered me the entire pile for $100, and I’d have bet there were 80 to 100 there. I could have got them but didn’t, and am still kicking myself...

[bolobaby]

Bitcoin is ultimately worthless vapor. It is the most fiat of fiat currencies, produced out of waste. It is the wet dream of anarchists and Occupy Wall Street who want to “stick it to the eeeeeevil bankers.” It will ultimately be banned.

On the flip side, it has some deluded cheerleaders who will tell you it is a “real currency” and “the future.” So, I guess that’s something.

Bitcoin is more worthless than Enron stock, however, and - like those Enron stock bag holders - you don’t want to get caught holding this particular bag. At least Enron stock had some office furniture and equipment attached to it that could be liquidated when it came crashing down. Bitcoin is nothing.