From seed-to-sale: Mapping out the life of a cannabis strain that’s inside the Multichain Ventures ecosystem

Legal cannabis supply chains have specific constraints given the strict regulations they are required to adhere to and the lack of a mature ecosystem to address their issues. Blockchain technologies are uniquely capable of providing tracking capabilities to this sector as blockchain ledgers can ensure custody and provenance through transparency and their decentralized nature.

Multichain Ventures offers a suite of products that help track cannabis products from seed to sale. These include the tokes platform digital payment and supply chain visibility products – both of which are powered by the Cubed Merchant Gateway and the EDEN GS1 compliant toolset – hosted on Reli.cloud. Together, these offerings provide the cannabis industry with an end-to-end solution that leverages cutting-edge blockchain technology to create trust between all the stakeholders. Let’s discuss how, with an example.

For a transparent and compliant supply chain to handle the seed to sale journey, a permissioned blockchain from the EDEN platform is needed. Once the EDEN blockchain is set up, a consortium of stakeholders is established, each with its own set of permissions. These stakeholders include growers, processors, transporters, merchants, and customers. With the blockchain ready to be launched, the entire infrastructure can be quickly containerized and deployed via Reli.Cloud to any number of cloud providers.

The journey of our product starts with the seeds. The grower purchases the seeds from the seller with Tokes tokens through the seller’s eCommerce website. The transaction is handled on the seller’s side with the Cubed digital payment solution, which lets any company set up digital payment processing. The purchase event is submitted automatically to the EDEN blockchain through its API, logging the transaction participants, the value of the transaction, the number of seeds purchased, the time of the sale, the location of the seeds, and any other details of the transaction.

The seed seller now weighs the seeds with an IoT scale that logs the event to the blockchain, associating the event with the seeds that were logged initially with the purchase transaction. The seller now packages them according to regulation, with a packaging event being recorded to the EDEN blockchain via scanning the barcode printed on the packaging.

When the shipping provider picks up the seeds, an event is logged to the EDEN blockchain through scanning a barcode printed on the shipping label. Then when the seeds are shipped, the grower scans the same barcode, providing another event to the blockchain, transparently revealing the chain of custody to all stakeholders.

The grower now plants the seeds, submitting a manual entry to the blockchain that creates a new ‘plant’ object on the blockchain for each seed planted, rendering the seeds consumed. During the growing process, progress is tracked through the manual entry of details to the EDEN query interface which submits unique events for each stage of the grow for each plant.

Variables during the grow like temperature, humidity, light exposure, and nutrients can all be tracked by the EDEN blockchain as well. This helps growers analyze different factors’ effects on the quality of the end product and because of the permissioned nature of the EDEN solution, the grower can keep this data private, and only share with others access to information needed for compliance and transparency purposes.

Once the plants have reached maturity, they are moved to another room for removing the fan leaves. The movement of plants within the growing facility is also tracked by RFID tags for each plant which are scanned by IoT devices in each room. These devices are connected to the EDEN API, submitting events for each movement.

After the leaves are removed, the plants are dried for seven to ten days in another room, and then moved again to be de-stemmed, sorted, trimmed, and cured. At each step of these steps, the plants are weighed, and each weighing triggers an event on the EDEN blockchain.

When the cannabis is now in its dried and cured form, a sample is shipped to a third-party testing facility which is also a member of the consortium of the EDEN blockchain. The grower pays the laboratory with Tokes tokens for their testing services.

The products are shipped to and from the testing lab following the same protocol mentioned before, creating a transparent chain of custody on the EDEN blockchain. The testing facility will measure THC and CBD concentration, and the data is automatically sent to the blockchain through internet-connected testing devices to ensure the data is not corrupted by a manual process.

After testing, the cannabis product is shipped to the packaging facility to be packaged according to regulation. The labels are automatically printed with data retrieved through the EDEN query interface that connects the dried flower with the correct information. This step ensures that the end product is not mislabeled.

The packaged products are then sent to the merchant’s storage facility that takes provenance of the products. At this step, the products are not only tracked through the EDEN blockchain but also by the Tokes Merchant Gateway, which provides an interface for inventory management.

The merchant can now sell their cannabis products through the Tokes PoS system for brick-and-mortar locations as well as through their own website with Tokes eCommerce integration. The PoS software allows digital currency payment checkout via QR scans by users’ mobile wallets.

It supports multiple digital currencies, including Bitcoin. The merchant can also set up an on-site ATM that allows their customers to buy cryptocurrency with fiat. The Tokes platform also allows the merchant to visualize sales performance, manage employee sales, and conduct accounting and reporting through an intuitive dashboard.

Once the customer has purchased their cannabis product, they can now track their product’s life cycle throughout the entire supply chain. Now the consumer can be assured that their product was grown according to regulation, tested, and transported without any missing links. All thanks to the inventive end-to-end solution covered by Multichain Ventures’ suite of software products.

If you liked this article, and want to learn more about how Multichain Ventures is rolling out decentralized services that are creating tangible value in the real world, then head over to their Telegram or check out their website.

Disclaimer: This a paid post, and should not be treated as news/advice.