U.S. retail giant Walmart and its division Sam’s Club, a membership-only retail warehouse club, will require suppliers of leafy greens to implement a farm-to-store tracking system based on blockchain tech, Reuters reported September 24. The end-to-end traceability system is based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) developed by computing giant IBM. According to the report, Walmart will require suppliers to implement blockchain tech by September 2019. The company’s Vice President of Food Safety, Frank Yiannas, stated that Walmart will require a similar traceability system “for other fresh fruit and vegetable providers within the next year.” Walmart told Bloomberg that over 100 …

IBM has won a patent for the autonomous self-servicing of networked devices that form part of its Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry (ADEPT) environment. The patent, first filed in late June 2016, was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) September 18. IBM first unveiled a proof-of-concept (PoC) for ADEPT in partnership with Samsung back in March 2016. The system uses a blockchain protocol as a basis for a distributed network of devices — what Samsung has called “a sort of decentralized Internet of Things (IoT).” As IBM explains as a background to its new patent filing, “IoT controllers …

IBM has applied to patent a system that would use blockchain tech to tackle privacy and security concerns for drones, according to a filing published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) September 20. The computing giant first filed the patent in March 2017, detailing how blockchain could be used to securely store data associated with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — more commonly known as drones. The patent notes that a blockchain system can provide “effective techniques for managing data related to a UAV [...] particularly when a security risk level is considered to be relatively high.” According to …

Digital invoicing startup Tradeshift CEO Christian Lanng countered “hype” over blockchain’s role in supply chains Wednesday, September 19, telling CNBC the technology “wasn’t ready yet.” In an interview at the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, Lanng highlighted the use cases for blockchain in areas such as identity and certifications, but argued supply chains were too much of a challenge for the technology in its current state. “If you want to have authenticity, if you want to know where it is sourced, that it is done in a responsible way [...] [blockchain] is a great technology to manage that kind …

New research from fintech analysts Juniper House has found that blockchain’s traction with large enterprises has risen by 11 percent this year, according to a press release published September 11. Juniper’s Blockchain Enterprise Survey: Deployments, Benefits & Attitudes (Second Edition) found that 65 percent of responding large enterprises – defined as those who employ a minimum of 10,000 staff – are “considering or actively engaged” in blockchain deployment, up 11 percent from the corresponding 54 percent figure last year. Further data analysis shows that nearly a quarter of firms have moved beyond blockchain proofs-of-concept onto trials and commercial rollouts. The …

IBM has joined a decentralized cross-blockchain registry initiative which it states is a Yellow Pages analogue for blockchain projects, according to an announcement September 13. The initiative called Unbounded Registry will be led by blockchain startup HACERA, and is designed to provide “a decentralized means to register, look up, join and transact across a variety of blockchain solutions, built to interoperate with all of today’s distributed ledger technologies.” The project will reportedly address major issues in the field, including reserved naming for blockchain projects, the discoverability of blockchain networks and applications, and a catalogue of domain-specific functions and services. Other …

Competition in the business of facilitating cross-border payments has just gotten tighter. Until recently, the primary fintech challenger to the reigning SWIFT international payment system has been Ripple Labs and its various products designed for the institutional banking sector. The first week of September saw the game-changing news break, as IBM announced promotion of its DLT-powered payment system, Blockchain World Wire (BWW), from beta to a ready-for-use product. Operating on the Stellar blockchain, the new financial rail will provide an infrastructure for clearing and settling cross-border payments with finality “in near real-time,” at the same time reducing transaction costs by …

IBM has brought its Blockchain World Wire (BWW) payment network out of beta this week, according to a recent post on IBM’s website. BWW, which uses digital currency on Stellar’s blockchain to facilitate international settlements between banks in “near real-time,” is the latest step forward for IBM and Stellar, which have been eyeing blockchain payment options since October last year. “The solution uses digital assets to settle transactions — serving as an agreed-upon store of value exchanged between parties — as well as integrating payment instruction messages,” a new summary of the platform explains, noting: “It all means funds can …

Tech giants Alibaba and IBM are vying for the top spot on a new list that ranks global entities by the number of blockchain-related patents filed to date, published August 31 by iPR Daily. iPR Daily — a media outlet specializing in intellectual property — says it consolidated data as of August 10 from across China, the EU, America, Japan and South Korea, as well consulting the International Patent System from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). China’s Alibaba only just seals first place, having filed a total of 90 blockchain-related patent applications, whereas IBM has to date filed a …

The U.S.’s second-largest bank, Bank of America (BofA), has applied for another blockchain patent on the development of a secure crypto storage system, according to a patent document published by the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) August 23. The patent, entitled “Block Chain Encryption Tags,” describes a system of recording and storing cryptocurrency-related transactions that are handled by enterprises. In short, the invention offers a system of data security for blockchain networks by implementing encryption and linking data units to the blocks of a certain blockchain. In the patent document filed on April 18, 2018, the North Carolina-based bank …

Tech giant IBM has applied for a blockchain patent for the development of transaction data identifiers based on nodes, according to a patent document published by the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) Aug. 16. The system described in the patent, entitled “Node Characterization in Blockchain,” intends to introduce a method of data extraction from nodes on a blockchain network in order to identify different types of transactions. Specifically, any operation on blockchain may possess a node or a number of nodes that can carry useful information about the character of transactions. According to the document, the described specification would …

Privately held insurance advisory American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS) has introduced its blockchain-based insurance database and reporting tool, according to an announcement video posted August 15. The platform, dubbed Insurance Data Link (openIDL), is based on IBM's enterprise blockchain solution, using Hyperledger Fabric. The platform intends to reduce “burdensome” statistical reporting processes, as well as cut costs and data processing time for insurance carriers. According to a report accompanying the announcement, openIDL is operating the “first secure, open blockchain platform that enables the efficient and permissioned-based collection of statistical data on behalf of insurance carriers, regulators and other participating …