Oliver Oram – CEO & co-founder of Chainvine & Dr. Rajiv Mathur – CTO and co-founder of Chainvine walk us through a use case they worked on with HMRC and a number of other participants to reducing friction in international trade. We also discussed in some detail the key challenges around consortiums, IP and openness. A must listen for blockchain initiatives debating through those various points.

 What is blockchain?Oliver answers this question by explaining why from a business perspective Chainvine uses blockchain as an engine for its platform whose fundamental principles were to have solid identity, self-sovereign data and security.

Rajiv reminds us that there are many different types of blockchains or distributed ledgers. The best examples of blockchains are public ledgers like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Distributed ledgers also come in many different forms with many not actually being blockchains but more as shared ledgers and some who are hybrids between the two. Chainvine takes an agnostic point of view to blockchains and distributed ledger technologies and utilise the most relevant one depending on the use case and problem they are trying to solve.

 About ChainvineThe name Chainvine is derived from blockchain and vines. The background of Chainvine is in enterprise and supply chain whose original focus was on fine wine. However, since then they have worked with many other commodities from steel to fair trade coffee.

 The challenge of paper in supply chainsOn 15th September Lord Holmes publishes a new report, “Reducing Friction in International Trade” (RFIT).  Oliver, resumed the challenges of supply chain to one word, “paper”. As part of the research into the writing of the report, it was identified that 80% of the cost of importing grapes in the UK is down to paperwork. The COVID crisis has demonstrated that that the physical way of doing things in trade, in the usage of paper is actually a critical failure in our supply chains.

For Oliver, it is imperative for the UK, to adopt new technologies whether it is blockchain, DLT, AI or machine learning, to become resilient and sustainable to trade internationally.

 Intelligent Wine

Chainvine was invited to participate at an event organised by HMRC, where Oliver and Rajiv presented the tale of the ‘intelligent wine” that had travelled with them across Europe gathering intelligence through different data mechanisms, such as distributed ledger, the Chainvine platform, and internet of things (IoT) devices.

This story essentially showed to the HMRC attendees that Chainvine is able to demonstrate where a good is as it moves across borders, how much it’s worth, what condition it is in and with whom that good is. This wasn’t about talking about blockchain this or blockchain that, but about how it was being used in this particular use case.

For Oliver this isn’t about tearing down regulations or standards, it's about making them easier to comply with, and making it easier for government to absorb that information and ensure that compliance and regulations are being met. It isn’t either about tearing down standards but ensuring that they are better met with this type of technology than it would ever be with any sort of paper system that is being used at the moment. The technology brings a higher level of resiliency and sustainability.

 Managing the challenges of consortiums, IP and opennessPost conversation with HMRC which had expressed an interest in Chainvine’s solution, Oliver and his team were introduce to the Wine and Spirits Trade Association  (WSTA) who expressed an interest in their solution. This was partially due to the challenge that WSTA is facing with VI-1 documentation requirements from the British Government. The WSTA estimates that full VI-1s for EU wines would mean 600,000 additional forms at a cost of £70m in additional processing.

There was a strong desire by the WSTA and its wine importers and exporters to experiment...