[2017-05-22] BS: Commodity traders, banks face hard realities with blockchain

Commodity traders, banks face hard realities with game-changing blockchain

http://www.business-standard.com/article/reuters/commodity-traders-banks-face-hard-realities-with-game-changing-blockchain-117052200780_1.html

Alistair Cross was flying high after showing in a pilot project how blockchain - the technology first developed for the crypto-currency bitcoin - could transform the old-fashioned and secretive world of commodity trading.

But since the pilot ran early this year, Cross and his rivals have hit some hard realities as they try to propel their industry into the digital age at last.

Word spread fast through the business when Mercuria, the Swiss-based commodities house where Cross is head of operations, successfully tested an oil trade. "The number of phone calls I've had from people in the last month once they heard we had done this has been incredible," he told Reuters.