Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz and other automotive companies, completed an extremely important blockchain transaction today.
The giant automaker used Marco Polo, a product built on R3’s Corda platform. Corda is a stack of enterprise blockchain applications which can effectively integrate with pre-existing solutions such as Ripple’s XRP line of remittance services.
The Marco Polo Network is a collaboration between many corporate partners, including Microsoft and Bank of America, but Daimler’s use of the network is a first.
Marco Polo’s name should not be confused with the children’s guessing game – instead, it derives from the famous ancient Italian explorer who traveled the Silk Road and helped establish reliable trade routes between the Khans and Europe.
Marco Polo Finds All Your Pre-Approved Payments
Daimler used Marco Polo to process transactions between themselves and industry partner Dürr. Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, a state-backed German mega-bank, also participated in the experimental business operation, playing its role in guaranteeing the transaction by committing funds beforehand.
Business processes of this magnitude often require numerous man hours, with endless opportunities for human error in the mix.
A Dürr executive by the name of Susanne Schlegel is quoted by Coindesk as saying:
“We focus on efficiency increases not only with regard to our machines and systems, but also to our business processes.”
The innovation here is the platform’s ability to automatically release funds to a valid payee (Dürr in this case).
The Business End of the Block(chain)
Smart contracts with this kind of efficiency and usability are what the business world seeks, and the Daimler announcement is not Marco Polo’s first major accomplishment recently.
Just a week ago, the network added Bank of America, a massive retail bank in the United States.
Will the R3 initiative and its Corda, whose first “old school” participant was rage-quitting Bitcoin Java developer Mike Hearn, end up being the realistic path to mass adoption?
Your guess is as good as anyone’s, dear reader.
