Yesterday the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) announced that the supply chain and logistics association BITA Standards is the latest to merge with it. BITA was founded in 2017 as the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) and was initially part of the media publication FreightWaves.
BITA’s board is led by Dale Chrystie, Fellow at FedEx, who has been at the helm since the early days. As part of GBBC it will continue to be led by Chrystie alongside executives from UPS, Delta and Salesforce.
“The global supply chain will be completely transformed by blockchain and web3 technology,” said Chrystie. “But we will also need open source and royalty free data standards to create a common language for all.”
The current focus is tracking a shipment throughout its journey as it moves between different logistics providers and types of transport. Other areas it may target in the future include identity, customs clearance and IoT metadata.
The highest profile blockchain supply chain initiative, TradeLens, was shuttered by IBM and Maersk last year. However, blockchain continues to be used in numerous projects worldwide. Most electronic bill of lading (eBL) solutions leverage blockchain. The future of eBLs is looking up as the major container shipping firms agreed to adopt eBLs over the next ten years.
The GBBC merged with Global Digital Finance (GDF) last year, although GDF retains a separate website. The GBBC also combined with the Post-Trade Distributed Ledger (PTDL) Group in 2018 and the Interwork Alliance for token standards in 2021.
The merged association includes 500 institutional members.
