A Bitcoin payment system that plans to use a cryptocurrency called the PRIME Token has started to disrupt the shipping industry.
The developer of the new form of payment, Prime Shipping Foundation, announced that on December 1, 2017 it became the first organization to invoice freight in cryptocurrency for about 3000 metric tons of Russian wheat from Rostov-on-Don, Russia to Samsun, Turkey.
Prime Shipping Foundation is an open-source project by Gibraltar-based Quorum Capital and shipping broker Interchart LLC to provide the logistics and freight market with a way to process payments and convert those transactions in and out of cryptocurrencies.
In mid-2018 it will start an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) for its PRIME Token so that shipowners, charterers, freight operators, brokers, agents and bunker suppliers start to use the new platform and cryptocurrency in their transactions.
The Prime Crypto Bank, legally certified to provide a global Bitcoin investment platform, will become the interface between the online world and the real world, allowing a gradual adoption for the shipping industry.
In a statement, Prime said that its team has worked “discreetly” on the mechanics of the product, which will enable an immediate processing of payments and conversion from fiat to cryptocurrencies and back “without incurring much additional cost for the customers”.
Read a paper by Karim Jabbar, Department of Computer Science, University of Copenhagen, and Deanna MacDonald, CEO, Blockchain Labs for Open Collaboration, on the opportunities for the use of container streams as an interoperable blockchain-enabled, DLT-based system for the shipping industry
As most of worlds' tonnage is currently registered offshore, the flexibility of these jurisdictions creates a good foundation for the development and the potential switch away from the classical banking.
Prime is currently working with financial institutions to close the gap between fiat currency and cryptocurrencies.
In pursuit of further strengthening its future position as a “handler of cryptoassets”, Prime has initiated the procedure to file documents for their banking license in Gibraltar, one of the most crypto-friendly jurisdictions.
Ivan Vikulov, CEO of the Prime Shipping Foundation, said: “The Prime Crypto Bank will become the interface between the online world and the real world, allowing a gradual adoption for the shipping industry, without compromising the benefits the new era brings.”
Read more: A recent soybean shipment from the US to China has become the first full agricultural commodity transaction to use a blockchain platform
