The picks of the previous post in my Truly Undervalued series did pretty good. (x25, x16 & x30). This time I will highlight just one project, but it’s another great one. For the WTC, VET & WABI maximalists: don’t worry as OriginTrail is not a direct competitor (No RFID). I am invested in WTC & VET myself and OriginTrail is more an addition than a competitor. All these projects could even benefit from OriginTrail. Also: the Supply chain market is huge, big enough for multiple solutions to thrive.
So, let me introduce my pick:
OriginTrail (TRAC)
Current market cap: $35 million
Currently tradeable on: ED, IDEX, GATECOIN
What
OriginTrail is a decentralized protocol for data sharing and data interoperability along any supply chain.
It targets three bottlenecks of current supply chain data solutions:
Scalability and cost issue of blockchain.
Fragmentation of data.
Issue of sensitive data that underpin a stakeholder’s competitive advantage.
They will implement these solutions to these bottlenecks:
Offchain scaling (like Vitalik Buterin recently recommended) via ODN and graph databases.
GS1 Standard = A well-known industry standard for data (other standards for data exchange will be integrated later on).
ZK-Snarks to protect sensitive data.
Hence OriginTrail is all about (offchain) scaling and providing interoperable data sharing between multiple supply chains on the blockchain.
The TRAC tokens are used for nodes and each action (reading, writing, etc) to the blockchain will cost TRAC tokens. Nodes will get rewarded in TRAC as well. Tokens for the team, advisors and preICO are locked for 2 years, receiving a percentage every three months. The whitepaper is really well written, it was a delight to read after so many baseless buzzword whitepapers and I advise you all to read it.
What’s there to like
The Origintrail protocol is blockchain agnostic: It means that they are able to utilize different blockchains for fingerprinting the data, which provides flexibility and ensures longevity. This includes Ethereum, Hyperledger, IOTA, NEO and in theory this could also include WTC & VET (making the data of said projects interoperable).
Offchain scaling, to minimize the cost and improve efficiency.
The GS1 Standard makes it actually look super well positioned for real-life adoption.
Admission into Walmart’s Innovation Pipeline.
Masternodes to be announced.
Active since 2013, working product and pilots in EU & Asia. Hong Kong office to come.
Huge partnerships & programs, read more below.
A lot more, but I didn’t want to make this list too long (high-quality community on Telegram, great support team, the upcoming Trace Alliance, the Singapore office, Chinese were excluded from ICO etc, etc).
Partnerships, Programs & Alliances
I’ve found the partnerships, programs and alliances to be truly remarkable.
Walmart
OriginTrail was awarded with Walmart’s Food Safety Innovation Spark Award for one of its pilots. This pilot used the OriginTrail protocol to provide the source of the food to consumers. Not only did OriginTrail won this award, they also were added to Walmart’s Innovation Program.
Yimishiji
You might not know Yimishiji, but it’s one of China’s largest online food stores. It already uses the OriginTrail protocol to enhance traceability in their supply chain.
Bits x Bits
OriginTrail is in the Bits x Bits accelerator program. Bits x Bits is a food tech accelerator VC in China. Note the Chinese connection.
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA)
OriginTrail became a member of the EEA, which connects Fortune 500 enterprises (including Accenture, BP, Microsoft, ING, Intel, JP Morgan and others), startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter experts.
Blockchain for Social impact Coalition by ConsenSys
CEO: “Creating impact with transparency is something we look forward also doing within the Blockchain for Social impact Coalition. Some very interesting activities planned for the next months there as well, stay tuned!”
Trace Alliance
Origintrail will set up their own Alliance in the future. According to the CMO in the Telegram chat it’s: “an association of companies (food, logistics, fintech/insurtech) who will spearhead the implementation of the protocol into their business processes. Our founders have been all over the world in recent months, presenting OriginTrail on major corporate events (one example here), which gained a lot of attraction in the industry. As a consequence, we are in serious discussions with more companies interested to use the protocol. This kind of “marketing” actually presents a bigger investment than marketing for the token sale.”
There are actually more partnerships, but these have less wowfactor than the above. Noteworthy is that they have already presented OriginTrail to the European Commission and won the Open Data Incubator for Europe award.
Team
The team looks like a healthy mix of experts and a few graduated people working in community management. The team seems experienced and professional. Hands-on experience and working since 2013. I like the fact that the founders have travelled the world already to bring in connections and showcase the protocol to industry leaders. If they’re able to bring in Walmart’s award and create this good of a product (seriously, read the white paper), they have proven themselves worthy in my book.
Conclusion
OT is basically a blockchain agnostic protocol that helps the data of supply chains to be interoperable, scalable and cheap to host on the/any blockchain. It’s using Industry standards for data and has some big partnerships and connections in Asia. They have a working pilot product on top of the protocol already (24.000+ live batches of products you can verify with OriginTrail solutions). This is a no-brainer for me. I expect this to fly if more people get to know more about this.
Note: OT’s current pilots all run in the food industry, but the team has made very clear this is a protocol that will be used in all the supply chain sectors. Token holders can even vote what applications will be built next on its protocol.
Full disclaimer: I am invested in OriginTrail.