ICON Foundation:

On May 28th, the Korea Customs Service hosted an MOU ceremony with eight other organizations including Nomad Connection, Matrix2b, CJ Korea Express, and Lotte Global Logistics. The ‘Blockchain based Customs Clearance Platform’ will be utilizing loopchain, the underlying blockchain technology used by ICON and several other companies and consortiums in South Korea.

Last week, Chosun reported that KSC (Korea Customs Service) had partnered with eight Korean organizations to develop and test a blockchain solution to make the ecommerce industry more efficient. The listed companies included Matrix Tobi Co., Ltd., Nomad Connection Co., Ltd., CJ Korea Express Co., Ltd., and Lotte Global Logistics Co., Ltd.

At the time of the MOU ceremony, the blockchain solution to be used was not revealed. Today, we have confirmation from ICON Foundation that theloop’s loopchain has been selected as the underlying blockchain technology.

The goal of KSC’s blockchain solution is to reduce logistics costs, aid in processing low volume ecommerce sales (I assume this means B2C volume), provide efficient and accurate data validation for customs clearing, and reduce smuggling and other illegal activities.

Malltail, Korea’s largest parcel forwarding service, is also a participant in this blockchain development process. While ICON Foundation’s announcement didn’t specifically mention Malltail, it did say “KCS plans to launch a pilot by the end of the year, and apply blockchain technology to all e-commerce import and export services shortly thereafter”. My guess is the mentioned entities will pilot the blockchain solution first. If all goes well, the rest of South Korea’s ecommerce industry will follow suit.

Now, the question is if any of this affects ICON. The answer is yes. First of all, this announcement was made on ICON Foundation’s official blog — not theloop’s company blog. Secondly, this adds yet another industry to ICON’s extensive network of partners. Other blockchain projects are busy trying to secure partnerships with individual companies, meanwhile ICON is silently signing on entire industries in one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries. As a reminder, ICON and theloop currently has its’ hands in the following industries — banking, healthcare, insurance, education, gaming, authentication, and trade. Many of these industries are already using theloop’s blockchain solutions in production environments. In the near future, all these private blockchains are going to have to talk to each other through an interoperable public blockchain.

Which one do you think theloop is going to choose?