Earlier this week, Marco Polo’s trade finance network holding company (formerly TradeIX) entered bankruptcy in Ireland. At one point, the blockchain network had more than 30 member banks, including Commerzbank, BNY Mellon, and SMBC, and its backers included ING Ventures and BNP Paribas. A potential $12 million deal with Bank of America recently fell through and the company was unable to find replacement investors.

As part of the deal with Bank of America, Marco Polo’s technology would have been integrated with the bank’s internal systems, according to the Irish Examiner.

The company’s liabilities exceed its assets by 2.5 million euros. Total debts amount to 5.2 million euros, with income due 2.6 million euros.

This is the second failed blockchain trade finance network after bank-backed we.trade filed for insolvency in Ireland in mid-2022. Also, late last year, IBM and Maersk shut down their blockchain platform. TradeLens blocks.

After the demise of we.trade, there was a lot of talk about the slow traction of Marco Polo. After launching the network in late 2020, it took more than six months before the first banks went live in 2021. But activity failed to pick up speed.

The other two blockchain trade finance companies are Contour and komgo. Both firms have niche target markets compared to the others, with komgo initially targeting commodities and Contour starting out focusing on letters of credit. Komgo recently acquired GlobalTrade Corporation of Canada, bringing 120 multinational clients to the platform.

Earlier this month, the entire digital trade sector received a boost when all major container shippers committed to adopting electronic bills of lading (eBLs). Half of all bills of lading will be electronic within five years and 100% after ten years. That’s particularly good news for Contour and other blockchain trading networks like GSBN and TradeWaltz.

Marco Polo ranks as the sixth high-profile enterprise blockchain failure in the past year. They all started around 2016 and 2017. In most cases, the problem was the inability to achieve market fit and scale before money ran out rather than a particular blockchain technology.

Marco Polo and the B3i insurance network used Corda from R3. We.trade and TradeLens were based on Hyperledger Fabric. The ASX CHESS project used DAML and the VMWare Blockchain. And Symbiont used its own proprietary technology.

More to follow.