US Patent 11190520 Blockchain smart contracts for digital asset access

A computing device includes a communications interface that communicatively couples the computing device with a plurality of other computing devices that collectively maintain a blockchain. A storage machine holds a plurality of blocks comprising the blockchain, where a particular block of the plurality defines a smart contract. The smart contract includes: (i) a first access criterion granted to an entity for a digital asset, and (ii) one or more functions that, when an associated condition is satisfied, change the first access criterion to a second access criterion, the condition being satisfied when one or more variables have specific values. A logic machine is configured to receive a current value of a variable and determine that the current value satisfies the associated condition. A request is transmitted to the plurality of computing devices to update the first access criterion to the second access criterion.