Sam’s Club, a China-based subsidiary of Walmart, has partnered with blockchain-based supply chain management platform VeChain (VET) to trace food products sold by the shopping chain. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will assist in the Sam’s Club Blockchain Traceability Platform project, which is intended to both ensure food safety and afford greater transparency to consumers in China. Since mid-2019 PwC China and Walmart China have been developing a traceability platform on the VeChain blockchain called the Walmart China Blockchain Traceability Platform. Sam’s Club has 2.5 million customers Sam’s Club is a membership-only high-end shopping chain that operates 26 outlets in China with an …

Speaking at the Hyperledger Global Forum 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona on March 3, Walmart’s director of software engineering for blockchain platforms, Archana Sristy, briefly discussed why the company joined Hyperledger. During a panel entitled “Blockchain in Action: The Latest in Production Deployments,” Sristy said: “One of the reasons we are now a member of Hyperledger is to show the open-source community the importance of interoperability. It’s presumptive to think that everyone will be on the same blockchain network and will use the same framework. We have developers at Walmart participating in the open-source community and we look forward to more …

Walmart has become the latest major conglomerate to join open-source blockchain consortium Hyperledger. Walmart is among eight new members to join the platform. The new members were announced on March 3 at the Hyperledger Global Forum 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona. Sanjay Radhakrishnan, the vice president of Walmart Global Tech, expressed excitement in joining the platform, stating: “We've seen strong results through our various deployments of blockchain, and believe staying involved in open source communities will further transform the future of our business." Hyperledger was launched in 2016 and is hosted by the Linux Foundation. The platform aims to “advance cross-industry …

25 leading pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, logistic partners, and other representatives of the pharma supply chain have published a report arguing in favor of adopting blockchain technology to track and trace prescription drugs after completing a pilot program with the US Food and Drug Administration. During early 2019, the FDA began accepting proposals for projects seeking to assist the office meet the 2023 requirements of the Drug Supply Chain and Security Act (DSCSA) - which requires the pharmaceutical industry to track “legal changes in ownership of pharmaceuticals in the supply chain.” In June 2019, the MediLedger Project was approved by the …

Walmart Canada — the retail giant’s Canadian branch — has rolled out an automated blockchain-based network for freight tracking and payments management, according to a Nov. 14 press release. The new system, which was developed in collaboration with blockchain company DLT Labs, is designed to improve freight and payment processing, enabling users to automatically trace deliveries, verify transactions and handle payments and reconciliation. Integration with each company’s legacy systems The release further states that the network can be integrated with a business’s legacy system and “manages, integrates and synchronizes all the supply chain and logistics data in real time, aggregating …

Experts allege the biggest hurdle facing the blockchain systems being adopted by food retail giants such as Walmart and Nestlé has nothing to do with the technology itself. In an interview with Tech Wire Asia, published on Nov. 7, Craig Heraghty — Agribusiness Leader at “Big Four” auditor PwC — reflected on the rising trend of blockchain among major retailers globally. He argued that: “The weakest link in the chain is not blockchain or any technology, the weakest link is the piece of sticky tape that puts the label on the package. You have to think like a fraudster and …

United States retail giant Walmart, in collaboration with IBM, will use blockchain technology to track its shrimp supply chains. On Oct. 4, Indian business publication LiveMint reported that Walmart will use blockchain technology to track its Indian-sourced shrimp to select locations of Sam's Club retail stores in the U.S. This is reportedly the first time that blockchain technology will be used to track shrimp exports from the Indian farmer to an overseas retailer. President of the National Fisheries Institute John Connelly said: “As one of the most traded commodities in the world, seafood has a complex and wide-reaching supply chain, …

Walmart is currently making use of blockchain technology to create a food traceability system based on the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Fabric. Along with IBM, the retail giant has already tested two proof-of-concept projects to examine its envisioned system. The first project deals actively with tracing the origins of the mangoes being sold across Walmart’s stores in the United States, while the other seeks to trace the pork meat being sold via the company’s different Chinese outlets. From an efficiency perspective, the research team at Walmart claims that by making use of this new system, the time needed to trace the …

What will 2020 hold for stablecoins? Big launches and some further regulatory drama are increasingly likely. Keep an eye on Facebook and Walmart to see how their projects progress, and watch as countries around the world unveil plans to launch digital versions of their own currencies. It’s likely that regulators will have no choice but to come up with a crystal-clear framework that outlines where stablecoins fit into the economy — but some countries, like India, may continue to push for an outright crypto ban. Back in the crypto community, the coming year could see exchanges work together to ensure …

American retail giant Walmart has submitted a patent application for a drone communication system that is based on blockchain technology. Walmart filed its patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Aug. 1. The filing describes a system on a drone that encrypts and stores that drone’s operational parameters. That information is subsequently passed to another drone, which decrypts, reads and then configures to those parameters. In essence, the vehicle-to-vehicle communication system between unmanned drones would relay messages, mesh communications networks and allow machines to be aware of each others’ location and bearing. Walmart’s venture into blockchain …

The growing popularity of cryptocurrency has led to a revolution in the digital currency industry. Enterprises that were of noncrypto origin now have or plan to have their own crypto product. The 10 years of cryptocurrency’s existence has led to an unprecedented ease of transactions. It has also brought transparency into the e-commerce world. This article discusses 10 of the biggest enterprises in the world, without a cryptocurrency background, that have already created or are in the process of investing resources to develop a digital currency they can call their own. 1. Facebook Facebook is reportedly completing efforts to release …

A senior policy analyst at investment banking corporation Cowen, Jaret Seiberg, said that Walmart’s proposed digital coin should not face as much regulatory pushback as Libra, Facebook’s proposed virtual currency. As Bloomberg reports on Aug. 5, Seiberg also added that Walmart’s crypto may have a demographic appeal to Democratic legislators who are keen to find an alternative financial infrastructure for people who do not regularly use banks. According to Seiberg, Libra and Walmart’s crypto proposal differ in scale. Seiberg comments that Facebook has global intentions which do not appear to be shared by Walmart. Possible regulatory hangups However, Seiberg noted …