Proxeus a blockchain company that fashions itself as “WordPress for Blockchain” announced a successful use case of its technology to implement a decentralised shipment tracking system based on IOTA. Proxeus was also recognised by Fintech News Switzerland as the top 19 startups for 2019

The company said that this use case demonstrates the versatility of the Proxeus framework and “highlights the disruptive potential of blockchain technology in the Logistics and Trade Finance verticals.”

It’s common knowledge that supply chain processes rely heavily on paper, for example a full binder of documents is needed to send a shipment from Asia to Europe. Deploying blockchain in said situation could in theory reduce the manual paperwork and the costs associated with the inefficiencies.

Leveraging blockchain and IOT

By combining new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) together with a decentralised ledger, it’s now possible to track shipments through the use of physical devices while registering the metadata associated with a particular shipment in a transaction on a ledger.

This way, it’s possible to instantaneously generate digital documents for the transit of goods from A to B, and thus issue shipment tracking which is both reliable and immutable.

A glimpse into the project

As part of a project by blockchain-development company BlockFactory in cooperation with logistics startup Sytrax, RFID chips were used to track palettes across connected terminals.

The tracking data (such as the consignment ID, the terminal name or even the signatory name) was directly sent to the IOTA ledger without any human intervention whatsoever.

Proxeus was then leveraged to automatically and instantaneously generate pre-templated documents (such as the Bill of Lading as well as various shipping receipts) based on the data retrieved from the IOTA ledger.

According to Proxeus the project was completed within the week.