Blockchain To Save Cotton Industry
Sponsored
Many people have problem understanding need of blockchain and cryptocurrencies as so many projects do not have real-world use, or at least we don’t see it right away. The biggest value of blockchain projects comes from the use and improvement of existing services.
There are many blockchain projects these days that offer to take the existing service to the next level.
Travel
Let’s take travel. Seems pretty clear: there are two options – either book everything yourself or go to a travel agency. Where can we go next with development in the travel industry? One day I met the team members of the project Azzurotrip and got to know about development in travel booking! There will be a separate article about it later.
Gaming and betting
This is a huge industry with a big turnover every day. Some of the few leading projects in this field are – Coin2Play, Gold Poker, ESBC, GameCredits. Each one of them offer something new, fresh and unique that improves the betting and gaming landscape. It can be the speed of transactions, the anonymity of players, chance to collect rewards for usage of tokens or referrals and many more.
Government and ID
Ok, must add something for those who say this is just for leisure and pleasure. Where is the REAL use? Yes, there is and at a very high level. Take for example governance and identification of an individual. Estonia, one of the European country that uses electronic ID card, electronic signature and other electronic services. 98% of Estonians have an electronic ID card. This platform is created with blockchain and has a real-world use in full spectrum. Estonians have been named as “the most advanced digital society in the world” by Wired.
Other
I could name many – starting from medicine, insurance, taxation, border control, properties, equity trading, copyrights and royalty to managing IoT (Internet of Things) networks. Main benefits are safety, convenience and speed of transfer of data. Also must add protection of privacy that is extremely high in blockchain network.
Cotton industry overview
The cotton industry is often called “white gold”. Cotton is considered the world’s most important natural fiber. Each year around 20 million tonnes of cotton are produced in different countries, like China, India, Uzbekistan, the US, Pakistan, Brazil, and more than 50 countries altogether. Cotton is needed for textile industry and especially for clothing and bedding.
For the last two centuries cotton industry has been facing a lot of problems, like poor working conditions, environmental pollution, and corruption. The working and living conditions of these farmers are very poor as these farms are in poor and developing countries. There is very less governmental support as well as poor infrastructure and cash flow. All this leads to the suicide of farmers, reveals researches.
Since 2015 a group of activists has been working on identifying the most important and pressing issues that restrict cotton industry players to grow and develop. The two most painful issues that appear again and again are trust and lack of funding. Of course, we are talking about lesser developed 3rd world countries. For example, US is far more progressive as they have Farm Bill, unlike Pakistan or India.
Traditional cotton industry looks towards blockchain
What connection has the cotton industry with blockchain, and how can it impact the existing situation?
Cotton Coin (COTN), a project with an Indian, Japanese and Polish management team, wants to introduce world with completely updated and improved technology network. COTN is built on the blockchain protocol and creates an integrated ecosystem for all involved parties: consumers and supply chain participants. This ecosystem will be involving more than 10 000 agents and around 30 million farmers, buyers, agents, and more. Thanks to blockchain technology this network will be able to manage more than 1 million transactions daily.
Important to note that, this project not only has a financial but also a social target. The team has gathered a lot of information that will help to make this project useful for those who produce cotton but have difficulties to sell for appropriate price or track payments. Many farmers are living and working in very poor conditions that the project team wants to change.
Structure and tools of Cotton Coin network
There are two dApps (decentralized applications) planned: B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to customer). These dApps will help to authenticate cotton sources, track delivery and monitor prices. Benefits of this network will include improved distribution chain, fight against corruption, fair and transparent trade, trust building among the cotton supply chain companies, consumers as well as authorities.
There are several important changes that the cotton industry can expect with this project.
- cotton industry becomes more transparent
- information about the cotton industry becomes more democratized
- technology becomes authority
- reduce cotton frauds
- help small industry players to take some spot in the big battle for customers
The payment system of COTN
The complexity of this blockchain project is understood once you realize how long and complicated the supply chain process is in this industry.
It is not only a chain between producer – agent and end user, but a more complex structure. So, trust and logistics become main issues within this network. Next – payment methods and ways to approve the deal. Here again comes the blockchain technology that improves the process and takes it to the next level.
Uniqueness of project
It is not only safe, fast and with excellent track-ability of the supply chain but also has few unique features.
- First of all, there are Roles, Activities and Input categories, every user has his own.
- Secondly, to connect physical, digital items or users will be done by scanning of QR codes. There will be two mobile dApps.
- Third, there will be a built-in reputation system that will give a score of person’s/organization’s performance and trust level. Any participant of a chain of supply will be able to do ratings.
- Fourth, there will be available full history of performance and quality of previous deals.
- Fifth, cotton safety alerts – the unique system that can be triggered by different events, like delay in transport or other suspicious activities.
- Sixth, the mobile app with phone camera will be able to read 1D/2D barcodes to identify items.
All together shows an understanding of the industry, improving its trade and giving users simple but effective tools. Of course, when I say “simple” I mean the front end that is user optimized. We can’t talk about this project being “simple” as on the back end is very complicated and difficult blockchain algorithms.
Mobile dApps of the project
The most useful part of this project is the simplicity of usage through two dApps (B2B and B2C).
Here are few screenshots of B2B dashboard.
Additional to this, there will be daily, weekly and monthly reports, updates, charts and tables of performance.
The second dApp is meant towards consumers who can see history, prices, characteristics and other details about cotton they intend to buy. Simply said, it is like wholesales shop (remember Alibaba) with all details that are important for customers.
Current stage of the project Cotton Coin
Cotton Coin was listed on the exchange CryptoBridge recently. In June it was listed also on Escodex. In mid-July COTN was listed on getdelta.io that tracks more than 70 exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, Bittrex and more. In August 2018, Cotton Coin was listed also on LiveCoinWatch website.
As part of the financial model, there are Masternodes available since May 2018.
There are many mentions of this project because of its usefulness and approach to existing problems of a cotton industry: NBC, Dubai news, CryptoMedia.
On July 18, 2018, Cotton Coin team in their Discord channel announced about registering their e-commerce domain cotton.my that will be used for their own label of children clothes. Interesting that even in this activity project team keep eye on helping cotton industry participants. These clothes will be designed and produced in limited quantities by experienced but retired tailors. This activity will help them to continue their work and give them a chance to earn.
On August 13, 2018, on Discord channel published great news: an investor who is involved in developing cotton seeds, has agreed to take over 2 million escrowed COTN coins at $8 price per each coin. Investors vision is that in the near future the value of this coin will be over $10 or more. The similar event happened only a few days later when construction and property development company GMT Global of Brunei signed for another 2 million escrowed COTN.
20th of August, 2018, Cotton Coin made an announcement on Discord that they are having now shared Masternodes with minimum 30 COTN. Shortly after COTN was listed also on CoinCodex exchange and Coinlib.
