- Blockchain-based genetic registration process provides verification security for growers and consumers alike
- Global cannabis market projected to reach $31.4 billion by 2021
- WeedMD becomes first Canadian Licensed Producer to adopt BLOCKStrain’s technology
As the legal cannabis market continues to develop, concerns about ensuring transparency and quality control for the growing number of medicinal and recreational drug products sold to consumers continue to drive a necessary breed of entrepreneurship required to legitimize the industry. BLOCKStrain Technology Corp. (TSX.V: DNAX) has emerged as an innovative leader in the quality control arena, releasing its proprietary supply chain management platform as a secure means of providing confidence in the inventory pipeline while safeguarding the interests of licensed growers.
Blockchain’s ability to provide an inalterable and transparent multi-user platform for tracing manufacture-to-market transactions within virtually any industry has gained an exuberant following among investors during recent months, sparking sometimes-explosive growth in entities’ values.
BLOCKStrain has adapted the open-source ledger’s technology to provide a cannabis genome-to-sale genetic chain of evidence that provides proof of ownership to brand builders in the multibillion-dollar industry and allows consumers to verify where a product originated and where it has been before landing in their shopping carts. In between the two extremes of the pipeline, distributors, shipping companies and government agencies also have a stake in auditing a product’s wellbeing. Moreover, the platform forms the foundation for what could become IP protection for growers and producers who produce branded products.
WeedMD Inc. (TSX.V: WMD) (OTC: WDDMF) (FSE: 4WE), which recently announced a merger with Hiku Brands Co. Ltd. (CSE: HIKU) (OTC: DJACF), in May became the first Canadian Licensed Producer (LP) to adopt the BLOCKStrain platform for gene record-keeping purposes. As Canada and select U.S. states continue pushing toward full national legalization of cannabis as a recreational drug as well as a medicinal product, the BLOCKStrain platform ensures competitive advantage for their products at retail by giving consumers more transparent data on each product.
“Unique and differentiated strains and product offerings have always been, and will remain, a cornerstone of WeedMD’s business model. Validating and protecting that intellectual property through BLOCKStrain’s platform will prove invaluable as we scale operations and broaden our distribution throughout the country as well as internationally,” WeedMD Chief Financial Officer Keith Merker said about the agreement (http://nnw.fm/P5Ida).
Cannabis presents an interesting challenge to players in the industry. Increasingly in demand for its reputed healing properties as well as for a burgeoning social drug movement, the plant contains more than 500 known chemical compounds that are, in some cases, pharmacologically active and the basis of worldwide marijuana restrictions. With cannabis, consumers have a keen interest in being able to identify what they are purchasing at a genetic level, and blockchain provides the potential to build up a new breed of custom retail.
Government agencies also have a public stake in ensuring the production quality, product potency and measurable equivalency standards of cannabis derivatives claiming a medicinal or wellness benefit. BLOCKStrain helps provide the supply chain data to support a regulatory framework that achieves this goal.
Thousands of cannabis strains exist, and, as new breeding takes place, craft growers also have an interest in protecting their intellectual property. For growers, the BLOCKStrain platform provides a gene-registration defense of intellectual property rights and establishes a historical proof of ownership standard that may sustain challenges in the legal arena (http://nnw.fm/6jjeO). Once growers create an account with BLOCKStrain, they can deliver seeds, flower and derivative products that will be tested at an approved facility to provide identifying data. BLOCKStrain administrators also provide a verification process for pre-existing cannabis strain genetic data that can become part of a client’s profile.
Closing the consumer supply loop, users can also use BLOCKStrain to rate products and share their opinions, which become part of the strain’s immutable record.
“We have a mission to take an industry that was originated in the shadows and, using the power of big data and a blockchain-supported supply chain management model, bring it into the light,” stated BLOCKStrain CEO Robert Galarza. “The business opportunity is massive.”
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.BLOCKStrain.io
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