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The global agricultural trade industry has been grappling with outdated and inefficient processes. The industry has not seen significant technological innovation since the mass adoption of email 30 years ago, making global supply chain management increasingly challenging. The need to track more partners, suppliers, and endpoints has become more complex, and post-trade execution remains highly manual, repetitive, costly, and time-consuming. The industry is heavily reliant on paper-based processes and email exchanges, with over 275 million emails exchanged annually to process an estimated 11,000 worldwide shipments of grain. Paper-based certificates and bills of lading are not easily exchanged among multiple parties, and replacing them if misplaced is costly. The COVID-19 pandemic has further disrupted supply chains due to interruptions to paper document deliveries and the increasing necessity to work from home, accelerating the need for digital transformation.

Societe Generale - FORGE, the digital capital markets platform of the Societe Generale Group, was part of the European Investment Bank's first digital bond on a public blockchain. On 27 April 2021, the EIB launched a multi-dealer unsubordinated, unsecured 2-year bond issuance (EUR 100,000,000) on the Ethereum mainnet, for the registration and settlement of the securities, in collaboration with Goldman Sachs, Santander and Societe Generale. The payment of the issue monies from the underwriters to the EIB were represented on the Ethereum mainnet in the form of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). This transaction was part of a partnership announced in October 2020, under which terms Societe Generale - FORGE selected Consensys to provide technology and services for its ongoing CBDC pilot activities through its Codefi Payments product.

Mata Capital, a French real estate fund management company, was facing challenges in distributing fund shares and maintaining its investor registry. The traditional processes were cumbersome, costly, and relied heavily on paper-based systems. The company was also grappling with substantial administrative costs, especially for small investment tickets for Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and registration activities. This resulted in high minimum investment subscription amounts, limiting the pool of potential investors. Furthermore, investors had limited access to secondary markets, making it difficult for them to trade assets as required by their portfolio allocation strategies. Mata Capital sought to modernize and optimize these processes, with a long-term vision to reduce minimum investor subscription amounts from €100,000 to €1, thereby attracting a wider and more diverse pool of investors to real estate asset investments.

The Ethereum network has seen a surge in usage, with over 177 million Ethereum addresses in existence and tens of thousands added each day. This high network usage, while signaling strong adoption, also points to a need for scalability and privacy-enhancing solutions. The challenge was to provide a solution that could handle the increasing demand for transactions on the Ethereum Mainnet and permissioned blockchains, while also ensuring privacy and confidentiality of transactions. The need for scalability was particularly pressing in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), gaming, Web 3.0 and the metaverse, where the creativity of projects on Ethereum is exploding.

The Bank of Korea was seeking a partner for its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot project. The project aimed to develop a digital version of the Korean Won with advanced features such as cross-border payments, offline payment, and integration with digital asset systems. The project was divided into two phases, with the first focusing on basic functionality such as creating, issuance, and redemption of the digital won, and the second phase exploring more advanced features. The challenge was to develop a secure, transparent, highly available, auditable, and efficient digital currency system that could handle both confidential wholesale transfers and scalable retail transactions.

In July 2021, renowned artist Damien Hirst released his first NFT collection, 'The Currency', on Palm, an Ethereum sidechain. The collection consisted of 10,000 NFTs, each corresponding to a unique physical artwork stored in a secure vault in the UK. The project aimed to explore the boundaries of art and currency, challenging collectors to choose between the digital NFT or the physical artwork, with the unchosen one being destroyed. The challenge was to successfully allocate, mint, and distribute these NFTs to over 32,000 users from 130 countries who applied to purchase them. The process needed to be seamless and accessible, even for users new to the Web3 space. Furthermore, the project required a secure and efficient platform to handle the high volume of transactions and the unique nature of the NFTs.

The rise of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) has revolutionized the way artists and creators connect with buyers, fans, and collectors. However, the current NFT ecosystem, primarily based on Ethereum's blockchain, faces significant challenges. These include high gas costs, slow transaction finality, and a lack of energy efficiency, with proof of work systems consuming vast amounts of energy. Additionally, there is a need for a platform that can support the trading of art assets within the ecosystem. The challenge was to create an NFT ecosystem that addresses these issues while providing an optimized experience for artists and creators.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is keen to explore the potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency (CBDC) using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The challenge lies in the development of a proof-of-concept (POC) for the issuance of a tokenised form of CBDC that can be used by wholesale market participants for the funding, settlement, and repayment of a tokenised syndicated loan on an Ethereum-based DLT platform. The RBA aims to understand the implications of 'atomic' delivery-versus-payment settlement on a DLT platform as well as other potential programmability and automation features of tokenised CBDC and financial assets.

Societe Generale - Forge, the digital capital markets platform of the Societe Generale Group, was in need of technology and services for its ongoing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot activities. The challenge was to continue building upon its recent groundbreaking achievements such as the issuance of a 100 million Euro covered bond on blockchain in 2019, and the issuance of a 40 million Euro bond that was settled with a CBDC in 2020, a joint project with the Banque de France, the French central bank. The focus was on CBDC issuance and management, delivery versus payment, and cross-ledger interoperability.

The Bank of Thailand, in collaboration with SCG and Digital Ventures (DV), was exploring the potential of blockchain technology for the development of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). The challenge was to develop a proof-of-concept prototype for a CBDC project that could meet both the functional and non-functional requirements of a retail CBDC. The bank aimed to test the use of a CBDC to simulate daily commerce, automate payments, and support a procurement and financial management system called Procure-to-Pay (B2P) developed by DV. However, the bank needed a technology partner to develop and test this prototype.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) initiated Project Inthanon-LionRock in May 2019. The project aimed to explore the application of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for cross-border payments. The challenge was to develop a technology that could support a proof-of-concept for a central bank digital currency. The technology needed to prioritize scalability, security, and interoperability. The project was in its second implementation phase and required a partner with experience in designing and delivering decentralized payment networks.