The well-known giants IBM and Danish shipping king Maersk snuffs a four-year-old blockchain project which was designed to track global trade and another hint that distributed ledger solutions may not yet be viable. A blockchain-based logistics platform TradeLens is aimed at digitizing supply chains which were launched in 2018. Many companies had signed on to TradeLens at its height including intermodal carriers such as BNSF Logistics and MSC port operator — the second largest shipping company after Maersk.
As a result, TradeLens has failed to achieve the level of commercial viability necessary for it to continue operations. The project’s future as a stand-alone company was ultimately jeopardized by its failure to meet financial projections. TradeLens was created using IBM’s proprietary blockchain technology and the Hyperledger Fabric open-source framework, both of which are products of the Linux Foundation. TradeLens is an example of an enterprise blockchain network that is much more centralized than popular protocols like Bitcoin and Ethereum. They’re usually entirely permissioned (private), maintained and controlled by a small group of entities (and often just one), rather than hundreds or thousands of unrelated network participants all working together to maintain consensus. Jointly built by IBM and GTD Solution — a division of Maersk — TradeLens’ intention was to promote efficiency and secure global trade.
TradeLens adds its name to the list of corporate blockchain ventures that have run into trouble. The Australian Securities Exchange abandoned a blockchain-powered system earlier this month after nearly three years of development and over $170 million in support of the project. That came after Microsoft’s Azure blockchain service was discontinued last year. In order to assist businesses in setting up their own permissioned blockchain networks, a platform was introduced in 2015.
“Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved,” Rotem Hershko, Maersk’s head of business platforms, said. “We will leverage the work of TradeLens as a stepping stone to further push our digitization agenda and look forward to harnessing the energy and ability of our technology talent in new ways,” Hershko said.Maersk said it would continue efforts to digitize the supply chain and further industry efficiency using other solutions, without mentioning specifics. Blockworks has reached out for comment.
