Yesterday, the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) announced that the logistics and supply chain association BITA Standards is the latest to merge with it. BITA was founded in 2017 as the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA) and was initially part of the FreightWaves media publication.

BITA’s board is led by Dale Chrystie, a member of FedEx, who has been at the helm since the early days. As part of GBBC, it will continue to be led by Chrystie along with executives from UPS, Delta and Salesforce.

“The global supply chain will be completely transformed with blockchain and web3 technology,” said Chrystie. “But we will also need open source and royalty-free data standards to create a common language for all.”

The current approach is to track a shipment throughout its journey as it moves between different logistics providers and types of transportation. Other areas you can target in the future include identity, customs clearance, and IoT metadata.

The highest profile blockchain supply chain initiative, TradeLens, was shut down by IBM and Maersk last year. However, blockchain is still used in numerous projects around the world. Most electronic bill of lading (eBL) solutions take advantage of the blockchain. The future of eBLs looks bright as all major container shipping companies have agreed to adopt eBLs within the next ten years.

GBBC merged with Global Digital Finance (GDF) last year, although GDF retains a separate website. The GBBC also merged with the Post-Trade Distributed Ledger (PTDL) Group in 2018 and the Interwork Alliance for Token Standards in 2021.

The merged association includes 500 institutional members.