Blockchain can repair our connection to the material world

Rage Comment : Humans always want to know everything around them, but we don’t even know the trivial things we see in our daily lives. Just like we don’t know how to choose the necessities of life, which brings us a lot of trouble and risks. We have many remedies and have combined many solutions, but these are far from enough. However, blockchain, with its unique functions, provides the best solution for us to control our lives.

Translation: Annie_Xu

There are many necessities we use every day, but we know very little about them. Before various products reach us, they go through the design, production, delivery and sales process, and the retailers, distributors, transporters, warehouses and suppliers involved in each link form a huge network. Basically, there are blind spots for personal items in all links.

The production, exchange and use of materials all have potential negative factors: environmental damage, resource plunder, poor working conditions, and loss of valuable materials due to product depreciation. Our connection with the material world has been broken.

But all material descriptions still have great value, which is why we attach so much importance and reliance to the stories behind brands. And yet our own perceptions of materiality and value keep us maintaining unsustainable systems.

The journey of matter

The vivid stories behind every product are always easily overlooked; but for many brands that are proud of the origin of their products, this story is always the most touching.

30% of British consumers pay great attention to the origin of products, but selecting and purchasing is always a daunting task.

Products with clear origins are becoming more and more popular, and consumers and governments are calling on brands, producers, and manufacturers to disclose the entire process. This is not only due to the requirement for product life, but also driven by the development of technology.

Industry leaders always understand the competitive advantages of open and transparent supply chains and product lifespans. Although various organizations help us distinguish between various options and prevent potential risks, in the end, the various certifications they provide are just a picture or a label on the product packaging; their true meaning is obscure and even more difficult to verify.

Proving the authenticity of various certificates requires a lot of costs, and the huge workload cannot fully guarantee the validity of the certificate content. The certification system that is popularized around the world is even more difficult to sustain in areas with serious corruption.

By Jessi Baker

trust

Although we all try our best to do our best, the results are limited and difficult to verify.

In order to enhance effectiveness and disseminate reliable information, neutral, non-profit organizations or governments have taken on the responsibility of building centralized databases.

In fact, it is impossible to rely on a single organization to store product supply chain information, which will only create defects and biases in the system.

If brands or the most powerful party in the supply chain play this role, then their responsibility becomes to protect their bottom line. If a third party collects supply chain data, the technology running the system must ensure neutrality.

However, third parties such as NGOs or industry associations can hardly achieve either of these goals and may end up being fatally flawed, becoming targets for bribery, social engineering and hacker attacks.

The combination of third-party supervision and centralized systems is currently the only option; but the advent of blockchain has overturned everything.

Blockchain technology has brought about changes to data management similar to what the Internet did to communications, changing the trust model on which brands rely.

Alternatives

We believe that blockchain has brought unprecedented breakthroughs in public information security, especially in the consumer goods supply chain. Blockchain provides a secure and auditable global database that everyone can share while protecting the security of personal identity information.

We provide an alternative for product and supply chain management and verification, determining and verifying every characteristic of physical products. The world can use digital ledgers to transfer digital assets without relying on central institutions. And the data is very secure, verifiable, immutable and legal.

It can record every component and material of a product from production, processing, assembly to sale.

Blockchain eliminates the need for a trusted central authority to operate and maintain the system. Using blockchain as a secure shared platform not only allows for understanding the final state of a product, but also overcomes the shortcomings of existing systems and allows people to audit the process that led to that state.

The authenticity of information brought by blockchain is unparalleled. We can be sure that the transfer of ownership is properly authorized without worrying about the behavior or capabilities of existing processors. We can even audit manufacturers to verify that the information on the chain matches the actual situation.

Businesses need trust. Blockchain will change people’s trust in products, brands and companies. Currently, disclosing supply chain information requires publishing sensitive information of brands. Blockchain systems can protect identity information while disclosing important supply chain information; for example, disclosing the certificates of processors to protect their identity information.

Consumers also need to make sure that companies are not whitewashing or selectively expressing sincerity. Blockchain can build a secure, auditable, decentralized information sharing system; while protecting key corporate information such as identity information and IP.

Market decisions determine which business model will develop. Blockchain can bring new dimensions to products, allowing companies that adapt to a transparent and trusted data ecosystem to grow and develop.

This system can go deep into the source of the supply chain and see the damage it causes to the earth and organisms; it provides the safest and most reliable information, allowing participants in the entire supply chain to choose products more rationally.