The client
A trade-documentation platform serving carriers, shippers and trade-finance banks.
The challenge
A bill of lading is a document of title: whoever holds it owns the goods in transit. Paper bills are couriered between carrier, shipper, exporter bank, importer bank and consignee, causing delays, fraud risk and demurrage costs.
What we built
We tokenized the bill of lading as an NFT on Hedera so that title can pass digitally along the chain of holders, with every transfer and endorsement recorded:
How title moves
- The carrier creates the e-BL in Open Attestation format; an NFT representing it is minted into the issuer’s Hedera account and the issuance recorded on Hedera
- The NFT and encrypted e-BL details are transferred to the next holder’s wallet; the receiver verifies the document and ownership changes
- Each holder — shipper, exporter bank, importer bank, importer — receives, verifies and endorses the e-BL with a digital signature
- On surrender the token moves to an expiry account, can no longer be transferred, the registry is updated and the consignment released
- Companies verified at registration using registration, EORI, VAT and DUNS numbers
- Each company and user gets a Hedera wallet and a role to create, view, transfer or surrender e-BLs; platform-managed, software or hardware wallets supported
How success is measured
Indicators include document transit time, number of physical courier movements avoided, endorsement turnaround per party and surrender-to-release time.
Technology stack
| Ledger | Hedera mainnet with Hedera Token Service (HTS) and Hedera Consensus Service (HCS) |
|---|---|
| Token | NFT per e-BL; document in Open Attestation format |
| Middleware | Core functions and hash engine, wallet services, RESTful API, Hedera SDK |
| Data | Mirror node API, off-chain database, optional IPFS |
| Wallets | Platform-managed, software and hardware wallets |
| Application | Web front end for company admins and users; REST API for carrier systems |
Client identity and commercially sensitive figures are withheld under confidentiality agreements. References can be arranged for qualified prospects under NDA.
