US Patent 10243748 Blockchain based digital certificate provisioning of internet of things devices

A system and method for provisioning an IoT device with a digital certificate without a need for a central Certificate Authority is presented. A blockchain is initiated, with a root certificate presented in an initial block of the blockchain. Said root certificate is subsequently used to sign an authorized certificate. The IoT device is preloaded with a nonce, and a hash of the nonce signed by an authorized certificate is published on the blockchain. The nonce may then be submitted to the blockchain with a self-signed certificate, the presence of the nonce validating the self-signed certificate. The blockchain provides a final single view of a true state of the digital certificates in the system and their respective authority and validity.