Charles Hoskinson, CEO of IOHK, a pioneering blockchain development startup, recently unveiled a partnership with American sportswear giant, New Balance. The collaboration is set to integrate the Cardano blockchain technology to authenticate the sportswear manufacturer’s goods, allowing customers to track and verify the origins of a variety of products.
The initiative was announced during Cardano’s second-anniversary celebration at the Cardano Summit, hosted in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second most populous city. Although the plan is to implement this project on a global scale, the current pilot does not involve the use of the ADA token, Cardano’s native cryptocurrency.
Blockchain technology has been increasingly gaining traction in supply chain management across various industries. As evidence, Walmart has recently utilized blockchain to establish a food traceability system, which is based on Hyperledger Fabric, an initiative by the Linux Foundation.
In a similar vein, VeChain, a public enterprise blockchain platform, collaborated with Australian winemaker Penfolds in August to release a case of wine bottles secured and tracked via blockchain. This venture was part of VeChain’s Wine Traceability Platform project.
Earlier in March, Carrefour, a global retail giant, introduced a blockchain-based solution to track milk products. The innovative system reportedly guarantees complete traceability of the product from the dairy farms to the retail shelves, enhancing consumer trust and transparency in the supply chain.