Today Vodafone, a leading telecommunications company in Europe and Africa, announced that Vodafone Digital Asset Broker (DAB), Sumitomo Corporation, InnoWave, and Chainlink Labs have successfully demonstrated a proof of concept using Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to provide secure blockchain interoperability across IoT devices.
Last year, Vodafone launched Vodafone DAB as an Economy of Things (EoT) platform that would allow the world’s IoT devices, of which there could be 30 billion by 2025, to securely transact with each other using blockchain technology “without human intervention, but with full owner control.”
The proof of concept, initiated at SmartCon 2023, demonstrated how trading companies could avoid unnecessary cargo delays by seamlessly transferring a digital bill of lading (a legal receipt of cargo) between multiple parties across several different blockchains utilizing CCIP.
In an official announcement, Vodafone DAB’s CEO, Jorge Bento, said the ability to exchange crucial trade documents through a single blockchain interface would solve a major pain point for the fragmented global trade ecosystem.
“Vodafone DAB and Chainlink are showing how their platforms can be combined to cut through this sea of incompatibility by bridging traditional markets with advanced decentralised platforms. This ensures seamless and secure exchanges of data and services across the global trade ecosystem, estimated to be worth over $30 trillion last year.”
Such a cross-chain, IoT-connected global trade platform could allow, for example, a vessel detecting a cargo fire to autonomously trigger a marine cargo insurance smart contract.
As part of its collaboration with Chainlink Labs, Vodafone DAB has also joined the Chainlink Network as a Chainlink node operator.
“Onboarding a world-class infrastructure provider like Vodafone DAB to the Chainlink Networks’ node operator ecosystem helps bring more secure off-chain data and computation to the Chainlink Network to support the wider blockchain economy,” said Thomas Trepanier, Head of Capital Markets at Chainlink Labs.
“The integration of IoT and blockchains has the potential to provide new monetisation opportunities for IoT devices,” said David Palmer, Chief Product Officer of Vodafone DAB. “Securing consensus and validation between DAB and Chainlink will be important to drive this growth.”