Firm behind global freight blockchain announces technology framework, ITO

Two container ships pass in San Francisco Bay

The company behind Blockfreight™, the world’s first end-to-end blockchain solution for the global cargo shipping industry, has announced its technology framework and initial token offer of up to $1.9 million of Blockfreight™ Tokens [BFT:XCP] at a discount to their US $1.00 retail value.

In a press release CoinReport received, the Australian-based blockchain research firm said the global shipping industry is responsible for the movement of more than $4 trillion of cargo each year, and Blockfreight™, the blockchain of global freight, improves market access and builds financial strength in global trade through increased income and shared costs for the global supply chain.

Sixty years ago, said the company in the release, the earlier exercise of shipping and loading goods of all varieties and types in separate bulk packaging was dropped in favor of the embrace of standard ISO containers’ reproducible and identified dimensions and handling requirements, something that lowered costs by nearly 98 percent in 1956.

The company further said it is working to develop an end-to-end blockchain solution to the main issues in the present-day, archaic system that requires manual matching up of bill of lading with letters of credit and other settlement mechanisms.

According to the release, Blockfreight’s solution consists of three key elements:

1. Smart contracts to securely, permanently define the Bill of Lading, terms of payment and other key elements to a completed cargo shipment, built on the Ethereum blockchain.
2. A tradeable token built as a Counterparty asset, which is secured by the bitcoin blockchain. This token pays for the transaction fees and effectively eliminates spam on the decentralized system.
3. Storage of the bill of lading and other documents too large to fit into a bitcoin block using the IPFS (Inter Planetary File System) protocol.

The Blockfreight™ token crowdsale is based on volume instead of time.

The company said while most token sales add bonus coins based on which day they are purchased, irrespective of how many are sold, the Blockfreight™ tokens, which will have a retail value of $1 US when the system is operational, will sell a fixed number of tokens at each price notwithstanding how many days it takes.

Following a private presale of 1,000,000 tokens, said the firm, the initial crowdsale will offer 4,000,000 tokens for two cents (USD) until they are sold. According to the press release, after that tranche, another 10,000,000 tokens will be offered for three cents, then 15,000,000 for four cents, and finally 20,000,000 for five cents, for a total of 50 million tokens for $1.99 million.

Tokens will be redeemable for $1 of fees on the Blockfreight™ system when it becomes operational in early 2017 (with testing in late 2016), said the blockchain research company.

The full Blockfreight™ white paper can be read here. The token sale is live at https://ito.blockfreight.com.

Image credit – Public domain image by National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA  (Source: California Publication of the NOAA)