What’s the Best Cryptocurrency for Supply Chain Management?
When the cryptocurrency and blockchain space exploded in 2017, supply chain management emerged as one of the ultimate uses to which blockchain technology could be put.
It was no surprise that new blockchain-based supply chain projects emerged while existing solution providers pivoted to utilize blockchain in their systems.
In the four years since the heady days of blockchain mania, many blockchain supply chain and logistics projects have come and gone, leaving just a few dominating the space.
In this piece we cover the best of the crop that remains and ask, which is the best cryptocurrency for supply chain management?
OriginTrail
OriginTrail provides supply chain integrity, management, and compliance for a raft of verticals ranging from science laboratories to fine wine.
It has also expanded into the creation of a decentralised knowledge graph that can store data across thousands of decentralized nodes, showing that there is more to the company than just logistics.
OriginTrail held its ICO in 2017 and made its debut in the crypto space in February 2018, just in time for the bear market.
The Slovenian project shrugged off the market conditions however to announce a raft of partnerships and protocol developments that year, including with computing giant Oracle.
OriginTrail has continued to grow, announcing a constant stream of smaller partnerships that show that its solution is being used by real companies on a regular basis.
Oracle remains the biggest household name that OriginTrail has partnered with, but there have been other success since – in 2019 it partnered with the British Standards Institution (BSI) to work with clients all over the world to help them comply with supply chain standards, and also with IoT platform EVRYTHNG, which is utilizing QR codes and the Origin Trail blockchain to verify authenticity of clothing and apparel.
OriginTrail also mentions Walmart and the World Economic Forum in its list of ‘awards and recognition’ as well as listing the likes of Target, Costco, and Home Depot in its list of implementations, although these are not with the brands directly but are as a result of third-party partnerships.
The TRAC token recently launched on Coinbase which is a sign of its standing, and TRAC token holders can apply to become node operators if they buy and stake 3,000 TRAC tokens.
If they are chosen they will help verify transactions on the OriginTrail blockchain and will earn a portion of the income that flows through the node system.
Morpheus Network
The concept for Morpheus Network dates back to 2016, but the project didn’t emerge until 2018.
The middleware SAAS platform combines blockchain, RFID, IoT, and other technologies to optimize global trade, using smart contracts across all aspects of the supply chain ecosystem including shipping, customs, banking, and accounting sectors.
This allows it to offer a ‘full service’ import and export system.
Morpheus Network boasts over 100 integrations, counting DHL, FedEx, UPS, China Post, and SWIFT among its partners.
However, most of these date back to a single huge announcement in June 2018, so we can’t be sure if all these top names are still using the Morpheus Network system three and a half years later.
Also, it’s important to note that these are product integrations, not strategic partners, so we can’t be sure of the level of involvement there.
On that note, Morpheus Network states that it aims to have “up to 100 customers” by 2021, a number that rises to 3,000 by 2024, by which time it hopes to be pulling in $100 million in revenue.
These are lofty goals, but they come with a lengthy warning on the same page of the website which ends by saying “the uncertainty of adoption by users and other factors…may dramatically impact the actual customer and revenue numbers.”
Not the kind of thing you want to see on a roadmap, despite how true it may be.
The recently rebranded MNW token is the coin that powers the platform and is used to pay transaction fees on the network.
The token operates on the Ethereum network as opposed to Morpheus Network’s own blockchain, which may have an impact on on-chain transaction fees unless Morpheus Network has found a way round it, and there is sadly no staking incentive for token holders.
VeChain
VeChain’s dominance, at least in terms of perception, in the blockchain supply chain world can be summed up by the fact that to most who have been in the crypto space since it emerged in 2017, it is blockchain-based supply chain management.
This isn’t without reason – VeChain can boast partnerships with some of the biggest brands in the world and has tentacles reaching into almost all industries, from luxury fashion to vaccines.
VeChain can boast partnerships with DNV GL, PwC, Kuehne & Nagel, BMW Group, LVMH (which owns Louis Vitton, Dior, Fendi, and Tiffany among others), Groupe Renault, Walmart China, among a host of other companies of all shapes and sizes.
Naturally it has different agreements with these companies for different things, and this fact reflects the scope of its operation – for example, LVMH uses it to authenticate goods using RFID tags, the Mediterranean Hospital of Cyprus uses it to track vaccine administration, and Renault and BMW utilize its blockchain to collect and retain automobile data.
VeChain covers a multitude of areas of commerce but it has its roots in supply chain management.
Using a high speed blockchain and a myriad of tracking and sensor technologies, it has helped huge suppliers increase transparency of goods shipped all round the world.
It has been partnered with logistics giant DNV GL since January 2018 when the pair announced MyStory, a traceability app for all kinds of products to verify their provenance, which was boosted in 2020 to include DNV GL’s Digital Issuance concept.
Similarly, it has been used by Kuehne & Nagel since 2016 to track the shipping of luxury goods using RFID tags, representing another long standing partnership.
These partnerships are the biggest of a large number of similar deals, with VeChain helping trace food, alcohol, luxury fashion, and more for its variety of clients.
VeChain’s daily transactions can range from the low 70,000s to the high 300,000s in the space of just a few days, but even at the low end this translates to almost 500,000 transactions per week which isn’t too shabby.
VeChain also has a multi-level node system where holders can act as node operators of varying degrees of seniority depending on how many VET tokens they use as collateral, with rewards being appropriate to their level. VET is seen as one of the few blue chip tokenstoken in the crypto space and is almost always spoken of highly.
TradeLens
TradeLens is something of an imposter in this list given that it isn’t a cryptocurrency project in the strictest sense, but it’s important to know about it in order to get a full picture of the blockchain supply chain management space.
TradLens is a blockchain-based supply chain management system created by IBM and Maersk, giving it financial and reputation clout that most supply chain platforms starting from scratch could only dream about.
TradeLens was announced in August 2018 when IBM was really ramping up its blockchain efforts.
94 organizations had already signed up to the platform at the time of the announcement including ports and terminal operators, customs authorities, freight forwarders, logistics firms, and more, showing that even back then it was a force to be reckoned with.
The project has only grown since then, moving into India and China in particular, with another logistics giant, Hapag-Lloyd, joining in June 2021.
TradeLens’ ambition is to make the entire supply chain process seamless and open, providing secure sharing of real-time supply chain information, encompassing shipping, cargo details, trade documents, sensor readings, and more, with all information viewable and actionable by all involved parties.
A major difference with TradeLens compared to the others in our list is that it doesn’t have a cryptocurrency attached to it.
All transactions are paid in fiat, which to many should instantly exclude it from our list.
It does however run on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain (or at least IBM’s version of it called IBM Blockchain), which qualifies it as a blockchain-based solution, even if it’s not a fully decentralized one.
TradeLens currently handles 10 million events and more than 100,000 documents every week, showing that it is without doubt the daddy of the blockchain supply chain and logistics space, hence why it deserves a mention here. However, with it being a much more centralized blockchain and having no cryptocurrency its presence on our list will undoubtedly be a contentious issue, but its impact on the space is so big that it simply cannot be ignored.
And the Winner Is…
So all things considered, which is the best supply chain management cryptocurrency?
If we’re being strict then we have to rule TradeLens out due to its centralized nature which brings certain advantages the others do not benefit from and, of course, we need to take into account the cryptocurrency side of things as well as the blockchain side.
It should be pretty clear then that the tussle is between VeChain and OriginTrail.
Both have solid partnerships, working products, and incentivize token holding and staking.
However, with its haul of stellar partnerships and its multi-level node program, VeChain is our winner.
The VET cryptocurrency has been called a blue chip crypto for a reason, and there are clear suggestions that things are only getting started for the Chinese-born company.
VeChain’s VEN/VET token performed better than most during the most recent cryptocurrency bear market for a reason, and it continues to be the flag bearer for non-institutionalized blockchain supply chain platforms.
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Tokoni Uti
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