Yesterday, Japanese blockchain consultancy BUIDL announced it completed a blockchain trial for vehicle and personal identity in collaboration with Toyota Blockchain Lab. BUIDL was acquired by the tokenization firm Securitize late last year.
Toyota Blockchain Lab is the virtual organization established within the Toyota Group. Earlier this week, Toyota announced it was looking to widen the reach of its blockchain initiatives and sought collaboration with external partners.
Toyota and BUIDL tested a personal blockchain ID infrastructure based on the concept of self-sovereign identity to enable consumers to manage their personal data. BUIDL said the personal ID could be used within the Toyota Group companies and with other firms in the future. The infrastructure enabled the creation of personal IDs, authentication of users using certificates, and digital signing of contracts using decentralized identity (DiD). Additional functionality includes payment processing by using personal ID for authentication as opposed to a user id and password.
On the other hand, the vehicle ID platform was built to record vehicle information such as maintenance and ownership. The two systems work parallel to link vehicle ID and personal ID enabling access to vehicle information based on viewing and ownership rights.
The vehicle ID system uses a public and a private network, based on the type of data verification required. There’s an enterprise blockchain consortium used for sharing data between manufacturer, repair centers, and second hand dealers. This bridges to the base blockchain, which we believe is public Ethereum.
But the consumer side, which might involve car rental or sharing and an insurer, is dealt with using a Layer 2 blockchain, which is used to enable privacy and scalability on public blockchains.
BUIDL and Toyota worked with blockchain security firm Quantstamp which typically audits smart contracts.
San Francisco-based Securitize acquired BUIDL in a bid to scale its capability after attracting significant Japanese interest in the security token sector. Some of Securitize investors are Nomura, MUFG, SBI, and telecoms giant KDDI.
Last week, Securitize announced that BUIDL created a real estate crowdfunding platform for Japan’s LIFULL and LIFULL Social Funding.
Meanwhile, Toyota is looking at blockchain from a mobility standpoint. Group companies of the automaker have previously trialed blockchain for blockchain bonds and energy trading.
In terms of vehicle identity, the MOBI consortium is a high-profile initiative currently working on developing blockchain vehicle identity standard (VID). Participants of the consortium include BMW, Ford, Renault, GM and Honda, among others. Toyota is not a member of MOBI. However, MOBI founder and CEO Chris Ballinger spent 15 years at Toyota, retiring as the Director of Mobility Services for the Toyota Research Institute.
