Russia and Turkey Settles Freight Consignment in Bitcoin-The First Ever in the Supply Chain Industry

By Mam Jobo Coker January 27, 2018 Digital Currency No Comments

Last month a ship’s cargo of up to 3,000 tons of wheat from Rostov in Russia was sold to Turkey in Bitcoins; this according to a company called Prime Shipping Foundation (PSF). The sale was pat of a pilot the company was testing that features blockchain-powered settlements for large commodity consignments.

Ivan Vikulov, PSF’s founder and CEO hopes the firm’s first try can lead to more consignment deals being done fluidly in Cryptocurrencies. PSF partnered with Quorum Capital LTD for the research and development for the project together with a ship management service company called Interchart LLC.

In a recent interview PSF’s CEO Vikulov said “We are trying to develop a cross-border payment system that’s easier and faster than what’s available now. As far as we know, this is the first freight deal done in a Cryptocurrency.”

The ship was containing PSF’s 3,000 metric tons of wheat from the City of Rostov in Russia to Samsun in Turkey. Concluding the sale in Cryptocurrency indicates that these types of payments could avoid international sanctions. According to Vikulov, he is planning on getting a license in Gibraltar since the country is more favorable towards Cryptocurrency solutions.

“Most of the world’s tonnage is currently registered offshore. The flexibility of these jurisdictions creates a good foundation for the development and the potential switch away from the classical banking system towards a much simpler payment system,” says Vikulov.

There are other projects using Bitcoin to disrupt the global freight industry. One of them include Blockfreight, which uses both the Bitcoin and ethereum blockchain at the same time using the IPFS (Inter-Planetary File System) protocol within the global supply chain structure.

Blockfreight’s Co- founder and CEO, Julian Smith told news.Bitcoin.com at a Bitcoin conference in Texas that he thinks Bitcoin is becoming the fundamental settlement medium in the trillion dollar freight businesses.

Although the 3,000 tons of wheat deal in Bitcoin maybe considered less interesting when compared to news this year of the use of the Cryptocurrency to purchase luxurious homes or expensive cars, however organizations involved with the supply chain industry believe the recent deal is a milestone.