Blockchain will Transform Supply Chain, Says Blythe Masters

By Chetna Phour

At the London Metal Exchange annual dinner, Blythe Masters the chief executive officer of Digital Asset Holdings said that blockchain projects are going to increase the efficiency of the commodity market.

Blythe is a former executive at JPMorgan Chase. After leaving JPMorgan Chase, she founded Digital Asset Holdings, a fintech firm which is developing distributed ledger technology for wholesale financial services. Blythe Masters is widely known as the creator of the credit default swap as a financial instrument.

According to Masters, Digital Asset Holdings is designing software which will enable the banks, investors, and other institutions to use the blockchain technology to change the way they trade bonds and other assets. She is pitching blockchain technology as a way to revolutionise the supply chain.

Blythe believes that the supply chain is complex and inefficient. She said:

“This is especially true in the metals and mining industry where many operational and commercial practices remain inefficient and antiquated, leading to critical data omissions, security vulnerabilities, expenses, corruption, and unethical provenance.”

According to Blythe, the virtual ledger technology underlying cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin offers greater confidentiality, better provenance, fewer paper exchanges, and a boost in productivity. Various global industries from agriculture to shipping are focusing on blockchain technology to improve the supply chain. Corporate giants such as Walmart and IBM are also focusing on blockchain technology for the supply chain. Recently the retail giant Walmart made it compulsory for its green leafy vegetable suppliers to put their products on the blockchain. The whole process will make the supply chain more efficient. In coming years, Walmart is planning to board all of its suppliers on the blockchain so that it will become easy to order products and check inventory.

In the commodity market, blockchain technology is going to play an important role because it will enable the real-time tracking of material such as gold, diamond, and oil through the supply chain. In a recent scandal with Standard Chartered Plc, a forged commodity storage receipt was produced.

The bank has also said that they are looking for some technology which can address the risk of multiple invoice fraud. Blythe said that “blockchain technology has the potential to impact mining industry supply chain profoundly,” She added “blockchain facilitates the exchanges of critical trade documents, bills of lading, letters of credit between connected users securely and confidentially.”