Industry Experts Discuss Potential of Blockchain Tech in Auto Finance

Using blockchain technology alongside mobile devices and smart tags, the pilot tracked physical goods and verified their attributes as they moved from source to market. Provenance worked with Indonesian fishermen across two supply chains—yellowfin tuna and skipjack tuna—helping them record catch data and move it through to suppliers. Indonesia produces more tuna than any other country, making it an obvious choice for testing transparency improvements in fish and seafood networks.

Provenance released a report this week detailing the trial's findings. "Provenance's ambition was not to demonstrate yet another digital interface, but a solution to the grave need for data interoperability: for tracking items and claims securely, end-to-end, in a highly robust, yet accessible format without the need for a centralized data management system," the report says. "It was found that blockchains meet these needs and offer an exciting paradigm shift necessary for traceability in such vast complex supply chains as the Southeast Asia fishing industry."

The trial exposed an urgent gap in current systems. The report documented widespread industry harms: "Human rights abuses, overfishing, fraud, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fish: a number of practices in the seafood industry are compromising the wellbeing of environments, wildlife and people all over the world." Moving data transparently across supply chains remains a major barrier: "With current systems however, effective interoperability of data along the supply chain poses a large technical challenge."

For decades, experts believed only a centralized system run by a trusted third party could work. "A centralized system, with a governing third party was, until recently, the only conceivable way to achieve data and transaction transparency. The truth is that no single organization can be responsible for making data throughout a whole supply chain transparent." Blockchain offers an alternative. While it cannot address traceability challenges on its own, it provides an "ideal base layer upon which architectures for robust traceability systems can be built and participated in without ownership by the biggest or richest actor."