PayPal has filed a patent for a system designed to speed up Bitcoin transaction times, and make the cryptocurrency far more useful to ordinary people.

The payments company is aiming to solve one of the biggest issues around Bitcoin − the sheer amount of time it takes for transactions to go through.

PayPal calls its brainchild the ‘Expedited Virtual Currency Transaction System’, and claims it’s capable of significantly shortening Bitcoin transaction times.

“Virtual currencies like Bitcoin have revolutionized money transfer and payment technology by allowing for inexpensive peer-to-peer transfer of value between users,” PayPal’s filing with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reads.

“However, the decentralized nature of such virtual currencies is accompanied by a need to confirm transactions, and those confirmation processes introduce a time delay or latency period between the initialization of the transaction and the point at which the transaction has been confirmed.”

It goes on to explain that individual Bitcoin transactions can take more than 10 minutes to go through, which is far too long a wait for both consumers and merchants.

PayPal says its Expedited Virtual Currency Transaction System will “practically eliminate the amount of time the payee must wait to be sure they will receive a virtual currency payment in a virtual currency transaction”.

Its filing says the system will work by “transferring to the payee private keys that are included in virtual currency wallets that are associated with predefined amounts of virtual currency that equal a payment amount identified in the virtual currency transaction.”

Having to wait a long time for payments to go through has been one of the biggest criticisms levelled at Bitcoin.

It’s what led Stripe to end support for payments made in Bitcoin earlier this year, with the company saying Bitcoin had “evolved to become better-suited to being an asset than being a means of exchange”.

Would such a system help make digital currencies a lot more attractive? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter @TrustedReviews.

Deputy News and Features Editor Aatif made his long-rumoured return to Trusted Reviews in 2018, having spent a wonderful 10 months writing all sorts for the site in 2015. During his self-imposed exile, he visited many faraway lands …