BHP Billiton has completed its first yuan-denominated transaction of iron ore employing blockchain technology. The company sold materials worth over $14 million to China Baoshan Iron & Steel Co LTD. It is the listed arm of the world’s biggest steelmaker China Baowu Steel Group (Baowu). Around four years ago, the mining firm announced its plans to begin employing the Ethereum blockchain to improve the efficiency of its global supply chain. The BHP geophysicist, Tyler Smith, said at the time that the distributed ledger technology could enhance data transparency between the involved parties and the tracking processes.
BHP completed the first sale of $14m of iron ore to Baosteel.
According to the Reuters report, the steelmaker giant completed its first sale, worth almost 100 million Yuan ($14m) of iron ore to Baosteel. The company also notified that it would use blockchain for similar transactions in the future as well. Earlier, BHP concluded its first iron ore purchase was supported by blockchain with Rio Tinto, which is the London-based large metals and mining corporations. Interestingly, the transactions were done using the Chinese currency Yuan and not the US dollar. The officials from Baowu said that the active promotion of Yuan settlement in iron ore transactions is not only for operational needs but also in line with the trend of yuan internationalization.
Blockchain adoption increases during the pandemic.
During the time of the pandemic, the logistics industry has been hit quite hard, and blockchain technology solves many problems related to it. Earlier, US Senate proposed a bill to utilize blockchain technology for remote voting and other operations. The congress is still contemplating the use of this technology for such purposes. The use of blockchain technology has increased quite a lot during the pandemic as governments turn to technology to resolve logistics and other issues. The American Cargill Incorporated and the Singaporean international trading company, Agrocorp, executed a trade for $12 million worth of wheat using a blockchain platform.
