3,000 Metric Tons of Wheat Traded for Bitcoin

Last month, Bitcoin was used in a freight deal sent from Rostov, Russia to Samsun, Turkey, according to a firm called Prime Shipping Foundation (PSF). Possibly, this is the first freight deal done in a cryptocurrency, per Bloomberg.

PSF is trying to develop “a cross-border payment system that’s easier and faster than what’s available now”, Bloomberg reported, citing PSF’s Chief Executive Officer Ivan Vikulov.

Vikulov hopes the company’s trial can lead to processing freight deals more fluidly through cryptocurrency usage. During the research and development of the project, PSF has partnered with Quorum Capital and Interchart LLC, a ship management service.

According to Bloomberg, “Prime Shipping Foundation is seeking to get a banking license in Gibraltar, one of the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions”, in order to make conversions between fiat and crypto easier. Because of crypto’s market volatility, Vikulov said they would allow hedging. They are developing their own cryptocurrency, with plans to raise funds for it mid-2018.

This comes soon after the announcement that Louis Dreyfus Co. teamed up with Dutch and French banks to use blockchain in the agricultural commodity trade. A blockchain platform was used to sell a cargo of soybeans to Shandong Bohi Industry Co., based in China, Bloomberg reported.

Cryptocurrency in the freight industry is not exactly news: a project called Blockfreight uses both the Bitcoin and the Ethereum blockchain while also utilizing the InterPlanetary File System protocol within the global supply chain. Blockfreight’s CEO Julian Smith said for news.bitcoin.com that he “believes supply chain dealers won’t even know bitcoin will be running beneath the system.”