Ethereum update: Supply Chain Blockchains
A lot of people get the idea of ‘supply chain on the blockchain’ confused, hopefully this brief post can provide a bit of clarity.
# How it Relates
Regarding supply chain management, the blockchain is not indicative of what is or is not true in the physical world (Ex: The shipping container was transferred from the ship to the truck) – anyone can put this on the blockchain. **The blockchain merely serves as a way to validate** **what people in the physical world have agreed to** (based on their respective public keys / ‘addresses’)**.** This is done via the same cryptographic signature verification that the blockchain uses to validate transactions.
This means that with the blockchain, we may never have assurance that a shipping container was transferred from a ship to the truck, but we do have assurance that two or more parties agreed that it was. This puts the burden of proof on the parties involved to ensure that the information that they are asserting is accurate. The benefit to this is that it provides an indisputable chain of custody between all parties involved that lives on a public ledger, where anyone can validate it.
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# Example
Here’s a cute example of this in the real world. Say someone comes up to you and tells you that California fell into the ocean. What do you know? The only thing you know for sure is that someone just told you that California fell into the ocean – you **do not** know if it is true. That’s basically the angle that the blockchain takes, except that what is said is put in a place (the blockchain) where any can verify who the people were that said it (as long as their addresses / public keys tied to their physical identity).
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# ‘Secure Enclaves’ / TEEs
I’m sure there are going to be a number of people who post on here about these – if you don’t know what they are, don’t worry, they’re basically pieces of hardware that can guarantee code on them hasn’t be modified. At present, [they have been hacked](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/03/using_intels_sg.html) and no invulnerable version is available to the public, so I’m not including them. This section was included to address the trolls and note that many projects in the blockchain space are based on these things working and being tamper-proof, which is not the current state of affairs.
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# Bonus
[Meme Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNH7BIzqWNI) for Supply Chain Blockchain
About Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third-party interference.
Author: eolszewski
Score: 10
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