Ripple, the San Francisco-based blockchain payments infrastructure provider, has registered a trademark for a possible new product called “PayString.”
Filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) late last week, the application is classified in the U.S. under the general categories "Advertising and Business" and "Insurance and Financial."
A logo for the branding takes the form of "a stylized circle design with four lines radiating from it" in multiple colors.
It's tempting to speculate as to what the new trademark will be used for, but there's not a lot of information to go by.
The filing describes use cases in "electronic financial services, namely monetary services for receiving and disbursing remittances and monetary gifts in fiat currencies and virtual currencies over a computer network and for exchanging fiat currencies and virtual currencies over a computer network."
All of which does fit in with Ripple's existing business model of providing distributed ledger-based technology for payments between institutions such as banks and money senders, some of which use the XRP cryptocurrency.
The USPTO filing for RippleNet, the firm's primary offering, has the same description.
CoinDesk reached out to Ripple for more information but did not receive a reply by press time.