Author: Tokenized Toast Club

Covantis is a blockchain powered startup founded by the world’s biggest agribusiness providers. It went live in 2021 targeting post trade for agribusiness. Now it plans to launch an electronic bill of lading (eBL) solution for its users, through a partnership with SECRO which has a DLT based eBL offering. Covantis’ backers include ADM, Bunge, Cargill, COFCO Corporation, Louis Dreyfus Company, Marubeni and Viterra (formerly Glencore Agriculture). The new eBL offering has been approved by the International Group of P&I Clubs, the insurance network. This approval is crucial for shippers, as the eBL serves as a vital document that signifies ownership of cargo in transit. Additionally,…

Mizuho Securities has partnered with Blue Sky Solar for a private security token offering (STO) to fund a solar power business. Security token offerings via institutions are reasonably common in Japan, but mainly for real estate tokens with one or two digital bonds. Mizuho says this is the first infrastructure private placement fund to be tokenized in Japan. The tokenization relates to the revenues from a limited liability company (LLC) that has acquired eight solar power generation facilities with an output of 9.5 megawatts which could power around 9,000 households. Blue Sky Group has a long track record in the sector,…

Japanese technology firm Fujitsu is a partner and investor in a new Japanese digital logistics platform, Sustainable Shared Transport. The company was founded by Yamato which has the largest market share for parcel delivery in Japan and also operates internationally. Fujitsu’s blockchain plays an important but relatively minor part of the platform by securing the logistics data across companies in a tamper resistant manner. The novel solution launches on February 1 and aims to allow road transport and logistics companies to share long distance shipments by matching shippers to logistic firms, using the platform for booking purposes. There are three key motivations. In Japan there’s…

The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) has gone live with its Gold Bar Integrity (GBI) Database. It standardizes and centralizes data related to the responsible sourcing of the gold, and the country of origin of gold held in London vaults, but the ownership data remains with custodians. The solution uses the Axedras Bullion Integrity Ledger, a system based on the R3 Corda enterprise blockchain. The LBMA and World Gold Council first partnered with Swiss startup Axedras in March 2022 with the WGC investing a couple of months later. This was for the LBMA’s broader Gold Bar Integrity Ecosystem, where the database is a single…

In the last few months there’s been a slew of good news relating to the adoption of electronic bills of lading (eBL), the critical document representing ownership of goods in transit. The latest news is Japanese container carrier Ocean Network Express (ONE) is working with the blockchain Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) to implement the latest eBL standards. Most eBL platforms use blockchain. Two years ago the Digital Container Shipping Association’s (DCSA) secured a commitment from major container carriers to issue half of their bills of lading electronically within five years and 100% in ten years. Last week the DCSA…

The Hedera Council that governs the public DLT announced that Mondelēz is the latest company to become a member. Mondelēz owns many food brands, including Oreo, Cadbury, Ritz, and Toblerone. It partnered with SKUx to use digital payments as an alternative to coupons or vouchers. That kind of solution also enables new kinds of consumer engagement. Mondelēz becomes the 31st member of the governing council, joining other household names such as  IBM, Google, abrdn, Nomura, Standard Bank, DBS Bank, FIS (Worldpay) and Boeing. Despite having technology and financial heavyweights on board, the biggest contributor to Hedera network activity has been another council member, Avery Dennison. The Hedera network…

Yesterday web3 loyalty platform Superlogic revealed it raised a $7.6 million in strategic funding round. Backers included Amex Ventures, Sangha Capital, 10SQ Capital, Nima Capital, Actai Unicorn Fund, Chainlink Capital and others. Amex participated in an earlier investment round. While one outlet claimed this brings the funding to $15 million, we believe it’s closer to $80 million. Superlogic represents a classic pivot from buzzy NFTs to a value added service for loyalty programs. Superlogic is a new brand, but the company started as OneOf, an NFT platform that partnered with numerous big brands such as the Grammy’s, Warner Music, Sports Illustrated, Gatorade and eBay. “At Sangha Capital, we believe…

Today Onyx by JP Morgan released a report on web3 for social commerce. Social commerce is valued at over $1 trillion with 600% growth expected by 2030. It explores how web3 could address some pain points in the social shopping journey. Looking at stats elsewhere, social shipping is clearly booming with Facebook taking the lion’s share. Another report shows over a billion people visit Facebook Marketplace monthly, as much as 40% of Facebook’s monthly active user base of 3 billion. Even more notable, 491 million visit Facebook purely for Facebook Marketplace. The New York Times recently wrote about Generation Z shoppers who otherwise use Instagram and TikTok for…

The blockchain company Polygon Labs collaborated with Accenture and Google Cloud to publish a white paper exploring web3 loyalty programs. It opens by arguing that current loyalty programs are too product focused. Younger generations are more drawn in by meaningful experiences. “Most loyalty programs today remain static and product centric, functioning essentially like a discount scheme that fails to meet the preferences of the newer generation of experiential centric consumers,” say the authors. They argue current programs are a race to the bottom, lack personalization and are too closed. Program members redeem less than half of the reward points earned. Consumer perspective: web3 loyalty benefits Their point is…

Today NCR Atleos said it is launching the LibertyX Bitcoin Cashout feature enabling LibertyX customers who sell bitcoin to collect cash at ATMs. According to NCR that means 75% of Americans have a transaction point within five miles. Or they will once the offering is fully rolled out. NCR bought LibertyX in 2021. The ATM firm plans to start the rollout in 30 states. It will only be available at ATMs that are ‘ReadyCode’ connected, where ReadyCode is a special API. “One of the remaining barriers to greater bitcoin adoption by consumers has been the ability to move easily and effortlessly from bitcoin to cash without…