Verizon Communications has filed a patent for a Blockchain technology for managing passcodes.

The telecom giant, the largest in the US, filed the patent in May. The technology, apparently in development for years now, would deal with the management of digital rights. According to the patent, the purpose for this application of Blockchain technology is the tracking and management of customer passcodes:

“The DRM (digital rights management) system may maintain a list of passcodes in a passcode Blockchain. The passcode Blockchain may store a sequence of passcodes associated with the particular digital content and may indicate a currently valid passcode. For example, a first passcode may be assigned to a first user and designated as the valid passcode. If the access rights are transferred to a second user, a second passcode may be obtained and added to the Blockchain, provided to the second user, and designated as the valid passcode. Thus, the first passcode may no longer be considered valid.”

Verizon only the latest company to try to claim Blockchain-related patents

While Blockchain technology is still new, many large companies have still tried to lay legal claim to the applications of this technology. PayPal filed a patent pertaining to digital reputation systems late last year. The Bank of America, meanwhile, has been busy writing dozens of patents pertaining to fintech and Blockchain tech.

Although the world of cryptocurrency and Blockchain technology has largely grown up in the absence of any legal structure to guide (or restrict) its development, exceptions to this rule do exist. The Bitcoin exchange giant Coinbase filed a series of patents last year pertaining to Bitcoin and Blockchain tech.

The “Blockchain boom” is in full swing, a bubble that may pop soon

Blockchain technology has become something of a trend recently. In the first half of 2016, Bitcoin and Blockchain startups raised almost $300 million in investment capital. This has led to speculation by industry experts that Blockchain tech could be in a bubble similar to that of the dot-com era of the late 1990s, and that this bubble will soon pop, causing an industry collapse.

This may be the case; however, Blockchain technology itself is here to stay.