Bitcoin-Based Bill of Lading

Abstract

One of the most important documents in shipping industry, the bill of lading (BL), remains relatively unchanged since the 15th century. The process still involves physical transfer of paper documents, accounting for roughly 40% of all container-based trades. The lack of interoperability between existing electronic BL solutions, coupled with the lack of trust in centralised membership approach, makes it challenging to adopt electronic BLs. A few blockchain-based solutions have been proposed to address these issues. However, due to the limitation of the underlying blockchain platforms, most solutions cannot offer scalability, privacy, or interoperability. In this paper, we propose a Bitcoin-based BL solution that provides data integrity, authenticity, non-repudiation, and immutability to electronic BLs. It is built on Bitcoin SV for its high throughput and low transaction fees. Despite building on a public ledger, our solution preserves privacy and offers an interoperability layer for information exchange.