Why Every Supply Chain Blockchain Died: Capture, Neutrality, and Lessons from Inside

Supply chain tracing is the use case blockchain was seemingly made for, yet every major attempt collapsed or quietly dropped the chain. This is a structured post-mortem from unusual proximity: I was IBM's first blockchain architect in the Hyperledger and Tradelens era, and architected De Beers' TRACR at BCG. Across six case studies I extract a failure taxonomy: systems deployed BY the intermediaries they should have disintermediated (capture), sponsors unable to be credibly neutral (Tradelens' unresolvable problem), tokenless designs that reduced the chain to an expensive database, and exclusion of the small producers who needed the system most. From the failures I derive testable design principles for capture-resistant trade infrastructure: credible neutrality, full use of the transactional stack, SME-first economics, and readable contracts — and show how they hold up in a live open-infrastructure experiment in fresh food. Attendees leave with the checklist I wish I'd had.

Speakers: Henning Diedrich

Track: Rights, Freedoms, and Governance