What is Smart Trade Networks?
A snapshot ...
What is Smart Trade Networks?
Smart Trade Networks is a general purpose, integrated provenance, blockchain-enabled supply chain finance and asset provenance platform. It offers a range of general functionalities that can be mobilised by diverse projects, including:
Asset Registration and Tracking, and digitalisation;
Supply chain finance innovation that enables communities to contribute to and benefit from investing in food supply systems;
Supply chain ecosystem services financial derivatives, tracked to actual assets and events that support improved carbon outcomes and ecosystem services monetisation;
Escrow smart contracts, to enable secure, low cost asset / product purchasing and settlement; and
A holistic approach to data integrity through the application of decentralisation throughout the data supply chain from data production, collection, validation, storage, and consumption.
The project uses a multi-signature architecture built on blockchain to deliver a range of asset and product provenance information. This in turn creates improved supply chain payments and confidence amongst participants in the supply chain. Solid asset tracking enables the issuance of asset-backed digital securities for investors of all sizes to get involved in food production systems.
What are the key features of the platform?
The STM platform consists of 5 primary anchor technologies, namely;
Blockchain - Proof of Authority consensus mechanism & smart contracts;
Internet of Things (IoT) devices (RFID identification on products etc.);
Oracles - a source of data from IoT devices and elsewhere and entering it into blockchain smart contracts;
Multi-sig protocol – A novel mechanism which requires multiple signatories to sign and validate an update to the “state” of the data. This also governs who can participate in governance and creates a reputation and behavioural value ecosystem which aims to address the problem of arbitrary claims made by supply chain actors. It is a powerful tool to dilute the problems of information asymmetry; and
Community attestation protocol – An additional protocol to the multi-sig process which aims to distribute authority throughout the community for verifying the integrity of data. This protocol is based on game theory design inspired by Schelling to incentivise the convergence on a ‘common truth’ from a group of strangers. It involves a mechanism by which participants can earn $BEEF by contributing to network integrity.
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