A subsidiary of Overstock.com Inc. Medici Ventures, the blockchain accelerator recently announces that they have invested in VinX, an Israel-based startup to create a token-based blockchain platform to reduce fraud in the wine futures market.
A wine future basically entails reserving a wine that will be bottled and released one to two years down the line. Upon buying the futures, the wine enthusiasts will be securing an incredibly expensive or nearly impossible to obtain bottled wine as and when they hit the general market.
As per the announcement, VinX aims to reduce fraud in the wine industry by involving blockchain to track provenance. The customer will from where exactly have their wine arrived. It so happens that many enthusiasts fall prey of fraudulent intermediary while purchasing the wine futures and instead of wine from a well-regarded region such as Bordeaux, they obtain a no-authentic bottle of wine. Notably, amongst a massive amount of wine sold throughout the world, 20% is counterfeited.
The blockchain platform developed by VinX win give consumers access to an immutable record of the wine supply chain while eliminating the necessity for a middleman. Sharing his enthusiasm over the project Patrick M. Byrne, founder, and CEO of Overstock states:
“VinX’s steps in tokenizing wine futures while allowing wine enthusiasts to know without a doubt that the bottles they purchase are filled with authentic wines will position the entire industry as a model of a new global economy that replaces old boys’ networks with frictionless trust through technology.”
Jacob Ner-David, co-founder and CEO of VinX, expresses his hopes with the platform and the partnership:
“[B]ecause we are registering all wine futures as tokens on a blockchain, we are bringing a powerful validating force that will go a long way toward reducing fraud. VinX looks forward to benefiting from the many years of e-commerce experience of Overstock and the blockchain leadership of Medici Ventures and the rest of the Medici Ventures portfolio.”
A similar blockchain project to track wine in Italy was launched last year by an Italian blockchain startup EZ Lab, as the love of wine in the country also invites counterfeiting.
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