ABSTRACT
The global supply chain depends heavily on maritime logistics to transport a variety of goods, from raw materials, parts, to finished products. Maritime logistics has many advantages over air logistics concerning cost and cargo volume. Thus, many manufacturers choose maritime logistics to ship their parts or products to customers because it has lower transportation cost and higher cargo carrying capacity than that of air logistics. However, there are significant inefficiencies in shipping goods across countries due to the complexity of documentation and administrative procedures involved with multiple entities participating in maritime logistics. The rise of blockchain and cryptocurrencies may shed new light on improving efficiency and enhancing transparency for marine logistics processes. This paper explores the potential of applying blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies in marine logistics. A proof-of-concept blockchain (and smart contract) application based on the Ethereum platform is developed to assess the feasibility of the new blockchain-based approach and evaluate the new approach against the current marine logistics practice.
