Rewriting the Operating System for the World Economy
In this Epicenter episode we were joined by Bob Summerwill, Community Ambassador at Sweetbridge — an ambitious project that aims to change the way global business operates at a fundamental level by bringing more liquidity to supply chains. In the Sweetbridge economy, working capital is freed up by enabling individuals and organizations to borrow from themselves, interest-free.We have summarized the key insights from the episode for you below.
The emergence of global supply chains, in which different countries specialize in different stages of a sequential production process, is an integral aspect and an obvious feature of globalization. These global supply chains are commonly known to be flawed with inefficiencies, as well as to be exacerbating the global economic inequality. While supply chains account for about two-thirds of the World’s GDP, the value is trapped in non-liquid assets sitting in warehouses, on store shelves, or in the form of outstanding invoices. For producers at the end of the supply chain, and who typically have little access to capital, waiting for customers to pay for their products puts them at high financial risk and threatens their livelihood. Bob Summerwill joined us recently to introduce an ambitious project — Sweetbridge — which took on a mission to fix some of those problems by applying blockchain technology to bring liquidity in all forms to capital assets and talents within supply chains.
Sweetbridge offers a liquidity solution allowing users on the platform borrow money from a central smart contract by tokenizing their existing physical assets and turning them into collaterals by putting them on chain. To put it simply, you can lend yourself money — but secured on assets which you already have. The ultimate vision is that all the assets of the world should go on chain, explains Bob. People who put down collateral and receive loans from the smart contract platform will be paid in Bridgecoins, which can be easily converted to fiat currency, while the second token — Sweetcoin — will be used for activities on the platform.
Bob believes that by freeing up a global pool of liquidity, the Sweetbridge solution will level the playing field for all markets participants irrespective of their location, and will thus contribute to reducing the global economic inequality. “We have an opportunity with blockchain to build a fair and better system — for everyone” he says.
Sweetbridge itself is not looking to build any products, focusing instead on protocols, fostering alliances, and creating ecosystems. The team and advisors behind the project have deep experience in global supply chain management and finance. While the majority of the focus right now is on liquidity and supply chain aspects, the Sweetbridge team is also working on the Settlement Protocol layer, which defines the ways in which supply chain participants may transact with one another by providing standards, and route around payment defaults from any supply-chain participants. Another important public facing component of the project is the Sweetbridge Alliance — a group of partner companies in the ecosystem that test, contribute to and transact business in this new paradigm.
If you want to find out more about the Sweetbridge model, listen to this conversation between the Sweetbridge CEO Scott Nelson and Ethereum blockchain expert advisor Vinay Gupta.
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