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  •   about 14 years ago

Is there a transaction limit on the MintChip?

While reading through the API docs, I noticed in one example there was a field that said something about a transaction limit.

I think it was on this page:

http://developer.mintchipchallenge.com/api/hosted/GetChipInfo.html

In the Example Response (JSON) section, these fields:

"creditLogCountRemaining":495,
"debitLogCountRemaining":480

Are these part of a transaction limit?

  • 8 comments

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    I asked this to the developers when I saw it.

    This is the response I received:
    The chip will disable itself when it runs out of possible log entries.

    If there is still value left on the card when this occurs: A clear/reset would need to be completed by a broker (possible a bank other trusted institution) at which point the log would be cleared and the remaining value transferred. For the developer challenge this functionality has not been exposed.

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    Good to know; I can see lots of debug testing hitting that limit pretty fast.

    I guess this is why we have Dependency Injection!

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    Ok. Would the RCM be able to reset chips for us should we reach this limit?

    I can see this being problematic in real world applications. I hope some kind of solution gets worked out.

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    This is rather important information that should be in the FAQ or some other common location on the developer site.
    Having a limit on the number of transactions a MintChip can perform (whether it is currently enforced or not) is a something to be taken into consideration in the design of any application.

    A business transacting with only 25 customers a day will need to reset their MintChip every 3 weeks. Wouldn't most businesses want to do a lot more than 25 transactions per day?

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    So any application built to receive a value message must first check to see if the MintChip would exceed the maximum balance by processing this value message and if so, store the value message in some method where it will not get lost or erased before enough debit transactions are performed to allow this value message to be processed.
    The application must also decide what to do with other incoming value messages... queue them up to be processed sequentially (FIFO), or process the value message "if it fits" (which could cause others to remain queued for extended periods)?

    Also, why doesn't the transaction log overwrite the oldest transaction when it reaches 500 instead of requiring a reset? Presumably, 500 is an arbitrary number based on storage limitations. Resetting the log wipes the most recent entries, suggesting you might to make copy of the logs before performing a reset. With enough transaction logs gathered from different MintChips, it would possible to analyze patterns and basically remove any claims of untraceable or anonymity.

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    The maximum balance allowed: 500.00

    why these tiny limits?

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    Tiny limits reduce the potential impact of counterfeiting.

  •   •   about 14 years ago

    Because $500 a pop would be waaay too low to even bother with, eh?

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