The OriginTrail protocol brings trusted data sharing to global supply chains by utilizing blockchain technology. The OriginTrail Decentralized Network is built for data integrity and validation in inter-organizational environments, based on globally recognized standards and powerful graph data structures. With existing use cases across different industries, OriginTrail aims to become the foundation for the next generation of business applications.
Based out of Slovenia, the OriginTrail team managed to raise over $22 000 000 dollars during the duration of their crowdsale, which lasted 2 days.
The OriginTrail protocol addresses three important challenges that enterprises face when connecting their existing IT architecture to any blockchain technology: Supply chain data fragmentation, supply chain centralization and sensitive data protection.
These challenges are addressed by the OriginTrail platform by enabling seamless and automatic data connection and interoperability between IT systems of different stakeholders in multi-organization supply chains with data consensus for ensuring integrity of data. Other data sets will include IoT and compliance data. In plain terms, data from different IT systems is transformed in a unified way, so the protocol can take full advantage of the relational nature of supply chain data. Once the data is aligned throughout the supply chain, consensus mechanism and the verification of data can take place.
Scalability is another important factor for successful supply-chain management. OriginTrail’s protocol keeps data off-chain on the ODN network, tailored specifically for supply-chain sharing needs. Because data relationships are of key importance in supply chains, OriginTrail’s leverages the power of graph data structures, which allow for high flexibility and connectivity of supply chain data.
OriginTrail incorporates the blockchain as a platform to ensure data integrity, minimizing the cost of utilizing the blockchain itself. For all the information that gets included in the system, a tamper-proof “fingerprint” (a cryptographic hash) is generated and stored on the blockchain at the time of arrival.
The OriginTrail ecosystem is enabled by the tokenization of data exchange and supply chain processing functionalities. The system consists of a nodes that are all running OriginTrail full software clients. Their supply is met by the demand of protocol users (supply chain data producers and consumers) that wish to share supply chain data using OriginTrail. Data providers use TRAC tokens to write data on the OriginTrail Decentralized Network and Data consumers use TRAC tokens to read data.
The biggest issue with the project lies in its technological complexity. There are two types of node which even the team admitted are susceptible to a plethora of attacks. Also, there was quite a lucrative discount to early investors quite before the ICO.
OriginTrail is an ok project. It has more than a few partnerships and use cases which provide proof of legitimacy to the platform. However, mass-adaptation is everything when it comes to projects like those, and while OriginTrail does have the potential, it’s a little bit behind as of the moment.
