Share this article
Ant Financial Is Launching a Blockchain App to Tackle Food Fraud
Alibaba payments affiliate Ant Financial is poised to launch a blockchain platform next month, alongside an application that tracks rice shipments.
By Wolfie Zhao
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 8:19 a.m. Published Aug 28, 2018, 11:00 a.m.
Ant Financial, a payments affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, is poised to launch its own blockchain-as-a-service platform next month, alongside a rice-tracking application intended to tackle counterfeit products.
Announced Tuesday, the firm has partnered with the municipal government of the Chinese city of Wuchang to deploy a consortium blockchain for tracking the entire production process of locally grown rice.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Located in China's northeastern Heilongjiang province, Wuchang is known for the high quality of a specific type of local rice. However, over the past years, news reports have revealed that packages delivered from the region were sometimes mixed with rice of lower quality.
Starting from Sept. 30, every package of "Wu Chang rice" sold by flagship stores on Alibaba's Tmall e-commerce platform will display a QR code that customers can scan using Alipay to obtain information about the food's origin.
Ant Financial said its distributed network is deployed among participating nodes including flagship stores' rice producers, Wuchang's Bureau of Quality and Technology Supervision, logistics supplier Cainiao and the Tmall platform.
The goal is to create a public ledger that contains unique information for each rice package so that any data discrepancy with the counterfeit products can be easily spotted.
"Consumers will be able to access production and logistics information including where the rice was harvested, which type of seed was used, and other details associated with the harvesting, packaging and transportation of the rice," the company said in the statement.
Further, Ant Financial said it expects to launch its blockchain-as-a-service platform in September – opening up its blockchain development tools for more enterprises.
In April, Alibaba announced that it was trialing a different blockchain-based supply chain app in order to prevent food fraud. That project is being carried out in partnership with Australian healthcare firm Blockmores and New Zealand dairy product maker Fonterra.
Rice sacks image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Bitcoin’s Deep Correction Sets Stage for December Rebound, Says K33 Research
K33 Research says market fear is outweighing fundamentals as bitcoin nears key levels. December could offer an entry point for bold investors.
What to know:
- K33 Research says bitcoin’s steep correction shows signs of bottoming, with December potentially marking a turning point.
- The firm has argued that the market is overreacting to long-term risks while ignoring near-term signals of strength, like low leverage and solid support levels.
- With likely policy shifts ahead and cautious positioning in futures, K33 sees more upside potential than risk of another major collapse.
Top Stories
