Blockchain Enabled Credibility Applications: Extant Issues, Frameworks and Cases

Abstract

The credibility of information is known as a major cause of a wide range of issues, such as: altered product information in food supply chains; fake transactions on E-commerce platforms; lengthy claim settlement time in agricultural insurance; and costly borrowings in agricultural financing. For a more specific example in food supply chains, end customers want to check the product information, but either doubt the authenticity of information, or simply do not have access to the information. The reason is that upstream suppliers and downstream retailers are often reluctant to share data, fearing privacy loss or business secret leakage. The consequence is that regulatory departments may face enormous challenges to identify accurate contamination sources, if there is scarce information or falsely recorded information at any stage of the food supply chain. In this paper, we focus on four common scenarios demanding information credibility in the agricultural supply chain: product traceability, E-commerce platforms, agricultural insurance, and agricultural financing. We review some high-profile smart credibility applications with emphasis on how blockchain related technologies can provide the information credibility by examining extant issues and relevant frameworks.