The US Patent & Trademark Office published on Thursday 10 new patent applications filed by Bank of America (BoA). The applications were originally filed in June 2014.

The patent titles are:

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• Cryptocurrency Offline Vault Storage System
• Cryptocurrency Transformation System
• Cryptocurrency Risk Detection System
• Cryptocurrency Transaction Validation System
• Cryptocurrency Electronic Payment System
• Cryptocurrency Suspicious User Alert System
• Cryptocurrency Aggregation System
• Cryptocurrency Online Vault Storage System
• Cryptocurrency Transaction Payment System
• Cryptocurrency Real-Time Conversion System

The above are in addition to two others, “Method for Integrating Cryptocurrency Transfer on a Social Network Interface” and “System and Method for Converting Cryptocurrency to Virtual Assets Whose Value is Substantiated by a Reserve of Assets”, which were respectively published on December 3 and November 19 and filed in June 2014 and May 2015.

Interestingly, most of the cryptocurrency-related patents filed in recent years have dealt with the handling of cryptocurrencies as assets, not their underlying blockchain technologies. BoA’s patents fit into this trend.

One exception is the recent filing by Goldman Sachs, “Cryptographic Currency For Securities Settlement”, which describes how a “SETLcoin” would carry out rapid asset transfers and eliminate counterparty risk.

BoA recently entered the blockchain race when it joined the R3-led consortium of banks developing the technology in collaboration.

The relative shortage of blockchain technology material may be due to the fact that most of the banks currently developing the technology are doing so in collaboration. There can also be a significant lag between the patent’s filing and publication. As much of the activity in the blockchain space has been initiated over the past year, we may see more developments in 2016.