Dear OBITS and ICOO holders,

We are happy to inform you that OBITS buyback orders were placed and the burn is about to take place.

The number of OBITS repurchased during the March buyback: 39,718.1536. All bought-back OBITS will be burned.

Built by Linux Foundation with IBM’s involvement in 2015, Hyperledger is the backbone of many blockchain enterprise systems. It was originally created with a goal to make collaboration between multiple businesses more efficient.

Hyperledger offers the “umbrella” strategy, incubating and promoting a vast number of business blockchain technologies, frameworks, libraries, interfaces, and applications.

According to the official statement on the platform’s website,

“Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration, including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing, and Technology.”

Some of the top practical advantages of choosing Hyperledger as your enterprise blockchain solution include permissioned membership (Hyperledger is a permissioned network, where all participants have known identities), performance, scalability and levels of trust, as well as protection of digital keys and sensitive data (this feature is especially valued by financial institutions for protection of customer information and other sensitive documentation).

Real Use Cases
Due to the high adaptability of the Hyperledger blockchain enterprise system, there’s a number of real use cases currently presented – below are just a few examples, listed in no particular order.

#1. Supply Chain for Pharmaceuticals
In April 2017, IBM announced several new blockchain enterprise systems to be built on Hyperledger Fabric.


The company partnered up with the Chinese conglomerate Sichuan Heijia to build up a blockchain-based supply platform for pharmaceuticals. Small and middle-sized pharmaceutical retailers in China often find it extremely difficult to secure financing due to the underdeveloped credit system and a lack of established credit evaluation, as well as risk control. After pharmaceuticals are delivered, retailers often have to wait from 60 to 90 days before getting paid.

With the help of the Hyperledger blockchain curated by IBM, the drugs will be tracked all the way through the supply chain, encrypting trading records. Such transparency will establish the authenticity of the transaction, lowering the credit risk of pharmacies and allowing the payment period to be shortened, with the funds possibly transferred even on the next day after trading.

#2. Blockchain-based Platform for Trade Financing
In the same month, April 2017, IBM partnered up with Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group and Mizuho Bank for creating a blockchain-based platform for trade financing.

According to the Japanese bank, blockchain technology helped them shorten the deal processing time from a couple of days to just two hours, also allowing to save on labor costs while increasing transparency through document digitization.

Additionally, Mizuho Financial Group is working with IBM to ultimately conduct all their trade transactions on Hyperledger Fabric. According to IBM’s official press release, such system will enable all parties to view the latest shipment data, which will drastically cut the trade transaction and processing costs.

#3. Blockchain-based Education and Training
In another project announced by IBM in April 2017, they’ve partnered up with the National University of Singapore to develop a module on financial technology in order to improve students’ education in this area, equipping them with the fundamentals of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.


Implemented in early 2018, the module is focused on educating students on the technology behind distributed ledgers, as well as its diverse use cases, from banking to digital currencies to supply chain management.

NUS faculty members co-developed the curriculum of the new module in cooperation with IBM researchers in order to encourage students and faculty members to contribute to developing the technology further. The module is co-taught by NUS academic staff who use Hyperledger Fabric to deliver the course content. 

Public and private blockchains differ more in how they’re used than how they’re built. The underlying similarity is that they’re blockchains: distributed, encrypted ledgers, monitored and verified by their users. In other words, they’re both networks that share an immutable record of transactions.

The real difference on a technical level is who has access to them.

Private blockchains
Private blockchains can be accessed only by those who have permission, and the network administrators can edit transaction records. Hyperledger and Ripple are private blockchains.

The confidentiality problem
Blockchains come with an inbuilt confidentiality problem. The audit log of transactions is available to all users. Solutions to this problem that make blockchain suitable for businesses (which don’t want uninvited users to have access to all their business data) include hybrid, private and consortium blockchains as well as various methods of building decentralized applications with inbuilt permissioning on public chains.

Public blockchains are the default choice. They deliver two key benefits over private blockchains:

1. Autonomy
A public blockchain exists separately from the entities that use it and participate in its governance. This means that, for instance, there’s no-one who can change the rules of the blockchain, alter or reverse transactions, or otherwise interfere.

Thus, a public blockchain can be truly ‘trustless’: users don’t have to trust other participants, because they interact in a manner mediated by the rules of the blockchain; and they don’t have to trust the blockchain’s administrators, because in a traditional sense, there are none.

2. Accessibility
Public blockchains are accessible to anyone with a computer and an internet connection. Some general purpose blockchains allow the implementation of smart contracts on the pre-existing blockchain, meaning users can achieve business goals on an extant network. And the newest generation of blockchains for general computing are deliberately designed to permit the construction of smart contracts and ‘Decentralized applications’ or Dapps directly on the blockchain.



Private blockchains are usually built to order for business or organizational use. For their users, they deliver:

1. Control
Private blockchains are controlled by a consortium of privileged users who can issue or deny permissions, alter rules, revert transactions and modify balances.

Obviously, this is totally opposite to what a public blockchain gives its users. But it allows a centralized organization to replicate its organizational structure on the blockchain, which is vital in cases where the organization will be held responsible for the validity of that information. For instance, a government land registry could benefit from the security and auditability of a blockchain, but it can’t relinquish its ultimate authority over the records.

2. Trusted known validators
In some public blockchain structures, the validators aren’t known, and in PoW blockchains dependent on mining, 51% attacks are a constant danger.

51% attacks occur when over half of a blockchain’s validators collude, outside the blockchain, to sign blocks they know contain false information. They represent the main known security threat to PoW blockchains, because miners could theoretically collude in this way.

While there has never been a 51% attack on the BitCoin blockchain, there have been 51% attacks on other PoW blockchains. In one, hackers made off with $18 million after an attack on the BitCoin Gold blockchain, in which they altered the blockchain’s own records so that they could spend the same money twice, known as a ‘double spend.’

In a private blockchain the validators are known. As long as they’re accountable using structures outside the blockchain, this makes the blockchain more secure against these types of attacks.

3. Lower operational costs
Transactions are cheaper in terms of computing and electrical power. They only need to be validated by a few nodes, which can be configured to do this efficiently. By comparison public blockchains have many more nodes, requiring far greater computational redundancy: every node is basically doing the same work, which is the key to blockchain’s security but also the reason why blockchains can be expensive to run.

Public blockchains tend to express their relatively higher operational costs as relatively high transaction fees for their users. BitCoin’s hit an average $52 per transaction at their highest, and while that’s an outlier, average transaction fees for public blockchains can be a problem: Ethereum’s transaction fees have actually been higher than BitCoin’s in the past.

But these transaction fees reflect the higher costs of operating these high-redundancy, high-node-count blockchains. Even if what you’re sending is a file, a message or an action that triggers a smart contract, rather than currency, you’ll find operational costs are higher on a standard PoW public blockchain.

On a private blockchain transaction fees and electrical costs can be kept to a minimum, though it should be noted that some public blockchains built on other consensus algorithms can also be considerably cheaper to run.

4. Predictable technical performance
Nodes are the entities in a blockchain that take part in creating a new block. On a private blockchain, nodes can be very well-connected and it’s possible to ensure all of them are running as intended, something that can’t be done on a public blockchain.

Partly this is because private blockchains typically operate nodes on dedicated hardware, whereas a public blockchain involves many consumer-level laptops and desktop computers. This is another advantage of private blockchains: hardware requirements can be known in advance because user numbers are pre-determined, so high performance can be baked in.

If anything goes wrong, it’s also possible to step in via an administrator account and fix a private blockchain manually.

5. Privacy
Private blockchains that limit user access, and manage user privileges centrally, offer better privacy. This should be of limited concern to most users, since blockchain already offers massively improved security and privacy.

However, a private blockchain eliminates identity privacy concerns. On a public blockchain, usernames are visible to other users. On a private blockchain, the same is true but users are permissioned, meaning user names can be real names and reflect organizational roles without any privacy issues.

Команда OpenLedger DEX рада сообщить об очередном обновлении UI / UX нашей децентрализованной торговой платформы.

Вот краткий обзор изменений, которые мы внесли:

*Цвет шрифта в книге заказов теперь белый, чтобы текст был хорошо виден.


*Коэффициент обеспечения теперь можно установить вручную. Установка целевого коэффициента обеспечения (TCR) позволит блокчейну автоматически продавать требуемую сумму вашего обеспечения, чтобы сохранить коэффициент обеспечения на уровне / выше значения TCR, выбранного вами, когда стоимость вашего обеспечения уменьшается.

*Мы сделали вкладку «Мои открытые заказы» прокручиваемой для большего удобства пользователя.

*Маржинальные звонки в книге заказов обозначены желтым цветом, чтобы вы никогда их не пропустили.


*Рынки на вкладке «Избранное» перечислены в алфавитном порядке (по названию первого актива в торговой паре).

OpenLedger DEX Team is happy to announce another UI/UX update of our decentralized trading platform.

Here’s a brief overview of the changes we made:

* The font color in the order book is now white to ensure that text is clearly visible.


*A collateral ratio now can be set manually. Setting a Target Collateral Ratio (TCR) will allow the blockchain to automatically sell the required amount of your collateral to keep your collateral ratio at/above the TCR you selected when the value of your collateral decreases.

*We made the “My Open Orders” tab scrollable for greater user convenience.

*Margin calls in the order book are indicated by the yellow color so that you will never miss them.


* Markets in the “Favorites” tab are listed alphabetically (by the name of the first asset in a trading pair).

With the increase in popularity of digital systems over the last few decades, the problem of fraud and identity theft became prominent due to the fact that each company you deal with, from banks to retail outlets, has a different way of verifying your identity.

Each company has to verify your identity somehow, and it’s particularly important for financial institutions. This gave rise to ‘know your customer,’ or KYC protocols to help companies ensure they know who they are doing business with. Typically this involves a long, drawn-out practice where certain documents are shown, and some sort of background check or verification takes place.


The pressure to increase KYC compliance has been coming from regulators, keen to stop the increasingly sophisticated financial crimes we are seeing each year. According to the survey cited above, financial firms ended up hiring an average of 307 new employees to deal with these regulations in 2017, up from only 68 new employees in 2016.

But there is a solution in sight. Blockchain-based KYC takes advantage of a secure, public digital ledger to give almost instantaneous and truly secure verification of identity. Due to the immutable and unchangeable nature of the record kept in the blockchain, fraud could become a thing of the past.


KYC History
Back in 1989, G7 nations formed a task force called the FATF to curb money laundering. The task force has since grown to include over 40 member states, and deals with anti-terrorism as well as anti-money laundering (AML).

Some key requirements brought about by the task force included prohibiting anonymous accounts, creating EDD (enhanced due diligence), suspicious transaction monitoring and risk management. The administrative burden has only been increasing since the inception of these KYC regulations.

Current Challenges
There is no global standard, so KYC practices vary by institution. This leads to redundant work and limits the ability for different financial institutions to collaborate to verify identity. Customers are subject to time-consuming and difficult-to-accomplish onboarding processes when opening new accounts.

Regulations are often changed, creating costly and effort-intensive obligations for companies to comply. Also, material changes in customer information are often not being updated, which causes inaccurate information in many bank systems.

Blockchain for KYC


There are many inherent advantages to blockchain KYC solutions. Many companies are working on a ‘digital signature’ that would keep a secure copy of all your KYC-compliant documents stored on a blockchain. Particularly if this is a public blockchain, it would be decentralized and both transparent and secure.

A bank or other financial institution who is looking to verify customer identity would simply need to be given permission to access the personal information, making blockchain KYC incredibly efficient. It would also be standardized, so every financial institution globally would be able to share and view the same data.

Updates to personal information would be done in the blockchain, meaning any institution using the system would also be privy to any information changes. Seamlessly, customers could update their personal information across all their accounts simply through their digital signatures. KYC using blockchain would mean that they wouldn’t need to contact each institution with changes, and the institutions would never miss such changes as they do now.

Blockchain in KYC is one of the most promising applications of the decentralized technology, serving a real need by decreasing KYC administrative costs and lost time while at the same time increasing security and transparency.

KYC using blockchain represents a true paradigm shift, away from individual institutions doing repetitive and redundant work.

OpenLedger DEX Team invites you to participate in our survey. We will use its results to improve your user and trading experience on our trading platform.

Please follow the link and take part in the survey. We promise it won’t take much time — there are only eleven questions.

The questionnaire is anonymous. You won’t need to provide any personal or sensitive information.

Help us make OpenLedger DEX better!

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system used for the distribution of information without the need for human interaction. There, information on computing devices, objects, humans, animals and all sorts of things using a unique identifier can be shared over a network.

At its most basic level, a thing in the Internet of Things can be a patient wired to a heart monitor, a cat implanted with a tracking chip, or a car using sensors to alert drivers when the tire pressure is low. It is an evolved technology achieved through the merging of wireless technologies, microservices, and the Internet.

Let’s look at the traditional methods of health monitoring compared to the IoT-integrated methods in order to achieve a greater understanding. Smartwatches now have the ability to track aspects such as heart rate, physical activity and inactivity, calories burned, and much more. The watch, in this case, would be a human’s unique identifier. The processes and collecting and processing the generated data, which would take a substantial amount of time in the past, are now streamlined through IoT.


The major concerns associated with IoT are security and privacy. Blockchain addresses these issues through its use of a distributed ledger. Blockchain has the ability to track innumerable numbers of smart devices and log the data they collect on either a public or private ledger.

The ledger is shared across all the users of the network, and therefore cannot be altered by a single individual without a general consensus. It runs on cryptographic algorithms which are extremely difficult to decipher, making it practically impossible to hack. Basically, blockchain helps to close the gaps in security associated with IoT.

Where IoT automates the collection of data, blockchain automates its security and authenticity. As shown by OpenLedger, blockchain paired with IoT can bring substantial benefits to various industries:

Most people learned about blockchain in relation to the decentralized digital currency that it underpins, but quickly use cases emerged in dozens of different industries leading to an explosion of blockchain-based startups.

Whether it be in supply chain, healthcare, the Internet of Things, finance, security, or even AI, blockchain development startups are some of the most buzzworthy ones of 2018.

For our blockchain startups list, we chose the most successful and innovative companies to help you understand just how versatile the new technology is. Their cutting-edge ideas will transform how businesses operate in the coming decades.


Aiming to capitalize on the influencer marketplace, PATRON hopes to disrupt the stranglehold that Silicon Valley and firms like Facebook and Google have over powerful media influencers. The Japanese startup is working on creating a network where companies and influencers can come together and transact.

The firm raised almost $30 million between public and private ICOs, and has been actively developing a platform to connect influencers directly with companies, cutting out the agencies in-between that often charge a premium for making such connections. With the global influencer marketing to reach $10-billion worth by 2020, PATRON is poised for success if they can deliver on their goals.


One of the hottest blockchain startups is focused on making blockchain integration easier for companies looking to implement the technology. There is often a fog surrounding just how to put together a blockchain-based solution, and Buddy is working to automate the application development and deployment process.

Already boasting high-profile partnerships with the likes of Github, Google Cloud Services, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Marketplace, Buddy claims to have 200+ companies using their app development system. Their ICO is currently at the private sale stage, and a solid team and roadmap make this Polish firm one to watch.


Healthcare is a data-intensive industry where both privacy and access of information are equally important, so it’s no surprise some of the biggest blockchain startups are in this space. BurstIQ is trying to consolidate users’ health data into a secure ‘data wallet’ that they can have better control over.

Identity management is one of the key strengths of the blockchain architecture, and BurstIQ recently announced a partnership with Shyft, a blockchain-based identity verification company. The goal is to allow governments, healthcare institutions, and patients to securely manage, share and access healthcare information while maintaining full HIPAA compliance.

Healthcare can be a complex and convoluted industry. The systems put in place for our health are outdated in terms of security, efficiency, and cost.

Blockchain healthcare use cases are being discovered by the day, and with them the entire healthcare system can be completely overhauled. Many healthcare and blockchain companies are currently working on or have already released blockchain-based systems to improve healthcare for both professionals and patients. By decentralizing patient health history, tracking pharmaceuticals, and improving payment options, blockchain is becoming a valuable tool for healthcare, revolutionizing the industry worldwide.



One of the most popular healthcare use cases for blockchain is patient data management. Medical records tend to be separated by health agencies, making it impossible to determine a patient’s medical history without consulting their previous care provider. This process can take a significant amount of time, and may often result in mistakes due to human error.

Developed on the Ethereum blockchain, MedRec is a “system that prioritizes patient agency, giving a transparent and accessible view of medical history.” MedRec is intended to store all of a patient’s information in one place, making it simpler for patients and doctors to view. In its current design, providers maintain the blockchain through the Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanism.



SimplyVital Health has two projects running on the blockchain technology. ConnectingCare, according to CTO of SimplyVital Health Lucas Hendren, “uses care coordination and financial forecasting to help providers in bundled payments get insight into what happens to patients when they leave the hospital.” It is currently on the market, helping healthcare providers determine how much a patient’s care will cost them when bundled with multiple organizations.

Upon the release of ConnectingCare, SimplyVital Health was able to collect data on the blockchain and determine what was needed for their next project, Health Nexus. Health Nexus stores a patient’s information on a blockchain for all the parties to view. It also will possibly allow patients to sell their data to researchers for profit.



The Taipei Medical University Hospital and Digital Treasury Corporation (DTCO) have recently released phrOS. It aims to increase transparency between medical institutions by putting all of a patient’s medical information on a blockchain.

It includes images, as well as various information concerning a patient’s condition. The information can be accessed by doctors and the patients themselves through a mobile app. It also increases the security of medical information through the Decentralized Ledger Technology (DLT).

The idea of cryptocurrency is enough to scare any government around the globe. Unlike fiat currency, cryptocurrency has no backing, it is decentralized, and the overall technology behind it requires a significant amount of research in order to understand completely. Not to mention many banks see it as a threat to the traditional financial industry.

In Bangladesh, bitcoin users can face up to 12 years of jail time, China has not only banned the use of cryptocurrencies, but even news organizations reporting on cryptocurrencies have now been targeted. However, despite a few countries’ disdain for virtual currencies and crypto markets, many others have begun embracing them.

Cryptocurrencies don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Countries like Malta and Belarus have realized this, and instead of prohibiting the use of cryprocurrency, have identified the importance of it for future economies.


Malta is the place to be when using cryptocurrencies. The country has embraced cryptocurrencies along with the blockchain, the technology behind them. Facing heavy regulations in Hong Kong, Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, moved its offices to Malta, where the country tries to work with cryptocurrency institutions rather than implement harsh regulations to snuff them out.

Unlike banks abroad, the Maltese banking industry intends to work with cryptocurrencies rather than against them. Malta banks realize that cryptocurrencies are here to stay. The adoption of a Utility Settlement Coin (USC), a cryptocurrency being developed by major banks worldwide, would further enhance Malta’s image as a friendly hub for cryptocurrency users, however, the adoption of a USC in the region remains unclear.


The U.S. has embraced the use of cryptocurrencies but has identified the need for regulation. Is it illegal to buy bitcoin in the U.S.? No, and it never has been. Is cryptocurrency legal? Yes. Moreover, it is now even being accepted in various states throughout the U.S. on a governmental level, such as in Ohio, which has become the first state to allow taxes to be paid in bitcoin.

Nonetheless, the amount of fraud, theft, and scams that have occurred in the cryptocurrency community within the past few years has led financial watchdogs, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to implement various regulations. Two bipartisan bills have recently been put forward in the U.S., which will protect cryptocurrency investors while stimulating cryptocurrency market growth.

Blockchain has become a valuable tool for a multitude of industries. Additionally, it is becoming an integral part of the supply chain. Its ability to streamline inventory management and track the shipment of goods has the potential to update traditional business practices in a dramatic fashion.

But what about blockchain logistics use cases? As shown by several companies and government organizations below, blockchain is making quite an impact on business logistics worldwide.



The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), in charge of the supply chain for all branches of the American military, recently held an event focusing on how blockchain can be used to improve collaborative efforts within the DLA.

Using Hurricane Maria as a case study, the DLA in conjunction with its Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) team, identified various areas in which blockchain could have improved relief efforts in Puerto Rico. Current DLA practices are managed by different agencies, making it difficult to coordinate responsibilities, as well as track resources and, as a result, 20,000 pallets of water were wasted in the Hurricane Maria relief process. Although blockchain is only being discussed, its eventual implementation into the DLA’s systems has the potential ability to save many lives, and decrease the time needed to provide relief services to regions affected by a natural disaster.



As many as one million lives are lost each year due to counterfeit medications. Global postal provider DHL along with the major technology consulting company Accenture hope to decrease that number with blockchain.

The tandem released a trend report, detailing findings on a working prototype that tracks pharmaceuticals from the point of origin to the consumer, preventing tampering and errors. CIO at Chief Development Office, DHL Supply Chain, Keith Turner described his enthusiasm for the prototype saying,

“By utilising the inherent irrefutability within blockchain technologies, we can make great strides in highlighting tampering, reducing the risk of counterfeits and actually saving lives.”

The prototype was made up based in six different locations used to track pharmaceuticals across the chain. Manufacturers, warehouses, distributors, pharmacies, hospitals and doctors would all have access to the chain, ensuring the legitimacy of medications and preventing tampering through each step. The blockchain was able to handle more than 7 billion unique serial numbers and perform 1,500 transactions per second, signifying the prototype would be able to trace a significant amount of medications in a small amount of time.



Bill of lading is a form of receipt detailing a list of a shipment of goods given by a carrier to the person or entity consigning the goods. Paper bills of lading can take up to ten days to process, while CargoX was able to cut that time down to four minutes with the use of blockchain and smart contracts.

CargoX ran a pilot project on the Ethereum blockchain shared between four parties: the Chinese exporter, the carrier/logistics provider, the consignee in Slovenia, and a release agent. CEO of CargoX, Stefan Kukman, praised the project saying,

“In our business, the standard is 2-10 days, so if we do it in four minutes, or even an hour, we’re doing great.”

OpenLedger DEX Team is happy to introduce you to the update of BitShareScan, a block explorer and analytics platform on the top of BitShares.

Since the product release a few months ago, the OpenLedger team has been working hard to make the platform better for you. Meet a 0.2 version of BitShareScan with improved UI and UX!

Brand New Features

Here is what we added:

* New widgets appeared on the homepage and account pages to provide up-to-date information about the blockchain and accounts.



* A switcher on the assets page that allows users to hide inactive assets.


* New filters on the assets page to filter assets by type: UI, SmartCoin, and Core Token.


* A price feed for smartcoins (displayed on smartcoin pages).

Команда OpenLedger DEX продолжает работать над достижением максимально возможного пользовательского опыта, и сегодня мы с гордостью представляем совершенно новый интерфейс вкладки торговли на нашей децентрализованной торговой платформе.


Раздел книги заказов теперь отображается вертикально по умолчанию. Вы можете переключиться в горизонтальный режим в любое время.


Мы ввели раскраску, чтобы сделать покупки и продажи сумм актива четко видимыми. Количество заказов для определенного ценового уровня представлено ярким цветом.


The more transparent color indicates the total amount of orders located above the row.


Чтобы рассчитать общую сумму ордеров на покупку / продажу в определенных строках, выберите как минимум две строки, и их общая сумма будет отображаться справа.


Вертикальный режим также отображает спред. Спред - это разрыв между лучшей ценой предложения и лучшей ценой спроса, выраженный в процентах.

OpenLedger DEX Team keeps on working towards the goal of achieving the best possible user experience, and today we are proud to introduce a brand-new interface of the trade tab on our decentralized trading platform.


The order book section is now displayed vertically by default. You can switch to the horizontal mode anytime.


We introduced coloring to make buy and sell asset amounts clearly visible. The amount of orders for a specific price level is represented by the bright color.


The more transparent color indicates the total amount of orders located above the row.


To calculate the total amount of buy/sell orders in specific rows, select at least two rows and their total amount will be displayed on the right.


The vertical mode also displays the spread. The spread is the gap between the best bid and the best ask prices expressed in percentage.

Blockchain is a relatively new technology, yet already its uses continue to pile up, introducing more and more world-changing solutions. Additionally to many other real-life use cases, blockchain has been particularly valuable in supply chain management.

Below are ten blockchain supply chain use cases that are increasing revenue and cutting costs for businesses around the globe.



United Arab Emirate’s state-owned oil company, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in collaboration with IBM successfully launched a blockchain supply chain system pilot program. The idea is to track oil from well to customers, while simultaneously automating transactions along the way.

While still in its early stages, ADNOC hopes to eventually expand the chain to include customers and investors, making its business more transparent in the process. ADNOC produces about 3 million barrels of oil a day, and by fully implementing blockchain technology, they will be able to keep track of all oil produced, reducing the time and costs associated with shipping.




Blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds, are those that have been mined under violent circumstances or in unsuitable conditions. They are heavily produced in Africa, and their sales are often used to fund various conflicts in the region. The world’s largest diamond producer, De Beers, has taken the steps to end the sale of blood diamonds by announcing its first successful blockchain supply chain program.

Through its program, Tracr, De Beers was able to track 100 diamonds from mine to cutter and polisher, then finally to jeweler. Photos of a diamond’s progress can be uploaded to the blockchain, as well as information concerning its color, quality, and location. Tracr not only gives customers peace of mind, but if applied to all diamonds, could stop the production of blood diamonds altogether.



It seems like there is a new E.coli outbreak every year. As it takes time to locate the origin of an outbreak, many retailers are often forced to throw out their entire inventories of produce. These four entities hope to increase food transparency and shipment efficiency with blockchain technology. The efforts are divided into two sections: Walmart and JD.com handle production and shipment of produce, while IBM and Tsinghua University handle the research and maintaining the blockchain. Unilever, Kroger, Nestle, and Tyson Foods all plan to collaborate as the project advances, with more food corporations to join along the way.