Tracking Tangible Asset Ownership and Provenance with Blockchain

Abstract

An emerging use case for blockchain is to track the ownership and provenance of tangible assets. Here, multiple parties work to compile a shared history of an asset from its creation to retirement. An inherent challenge in using blockchain for this task involves keeping the status of the tangible asset in the physical world in sync with its digital counterpart on the blockchain. While there are already several applications of blockchain being used for this purpose, specific implementation details are fragmented. In response, this study examines four stages of tracking tangible assets using a consortium’s permissioned blockchain, including: design and governance of the blockchain, asset creation, asset transfer, and asset retirement. Based on this analysis, the study provides a framework of risk considerations and control objectives to evaluate whether (or to what extent) a specific blockchain serves as a reliable ledger for tracking the ownership and provenance of tangible assets.