According to a press release published last Friday, "North America's largest branded shelf-stable seafood company" announced that it is using the cloud-based Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform of a major international software company "to trace the journey of yellowfin tuna from the Indonesian ocean to the dinner table." According to the press release, "consumers and customers will be able to easily access the complete origin and history of ... yellowfin tuna simply by using their smartphones to scan a QR code on the product package."

Last week in Singapore, the government announced TradeTrust, a blockchain pilot project for port authorities that will seek to "turn paper-based bills of lading into digital documents that can be shared and accessed when container ships dock and unload in Singapore and consequently cut costs and the risk of fraud..." This week, the European Union Blockchain Observatory and Forum issued a report focusing on blockchain scalability, interoperability and sustainability. Among many other findings, the report highlights that blockchains "will need to interact with the off-chain world as well as with each other." Another report published from Europe this week focused on the danger of collusion posed by blockchain solutions, and proposed "methods of action for antitrust and competition agencies."

This week a press release announced that government agencies in Canada are working to build a blockchain-based identity solution that will seek to streamline the process of authenticating company credentials for government and business. The solution would leverage the Hyperledger Indy blockchain. Enhancing data security through blockchain was also the subject of a patent granted this week to a subsidiary of a major U.S. telecom firm. The patent envisions a system that uses blockchain to secure communications and recordings.

This week MyEtherWallet announced EthVM, a new open source Ethereum blockchain explorer tool. Ethereum analytics tools continue to advance and provide more data from the Ethereum blockchain, with one recent analysis finding that over 80 percent of the total existing supply of ether is held by only 7,572 wallet addresses.

For more information, please refer to the following links:

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.