Minery, a Brazil-based mineral commodity trading marketplace, is adding digital traceability to its platform using Minespider’s blockchain platform.

The integration offers additional assurance about the provenance of the minerals for sale and the immutability of the data, as well as ensuring that trades are secure, Minespider says.

Minery’s goal is to overhaul an inefficient mineral trading system with a completely digital marketplace.

Minespider explained: “Due to the opaque nature of global supply chains, traders often buy and sell minerals at substantial premiums and negotiations can take up to six months. Minery’s platform has the potential to greatly reduce these fees and improve liquidity for mines, who can expect a more consistent cash flow.”

Minery’s Co-founder & CEO, Eduardo Gama, said: “We are very excited about Minery’s partnership with Minespider. We believe that traceability is part of the future we are building, adding value to miners who work sustainably, respecting the environment and the people involved. With Minespider’s blockchain technology and Minery’s certification process, everyone will be able to know where their everyday metals came from and under what conditions they were produced.”

Founded in Brazil, a country over 9,415 active mines, Minery aims to promote small and medium-sized mining companies by helping them to sell more effectively on the global market. It has developed Certimine, a certification that ensures all mines comply with international standards.

The use of protective equipment, lack of environmental contamination, machinery and permits are just a few of the factors that registered Minery technicians verify on-site as part of the certification process. In this way, every mineral producer featured on Minery will be certified and every buyer can track the origin of their minerals, and the conditions under which they were produced.

Minery has three mines currently certified and hopes to certify five more in the next two-to-three-months, a spokesperson told IM.

Minespider, meanwhile, has built a public, permissioned blockchain specially designed for raw material traceability. Its clients, including Minsur and LuNa Smelter, create blockchain-secured digital IDs called digital Product Passports to track their material shipments downstream. These passports contain information such as provenance data, due diligence documents and carbon emissions data.

Beyond this, companies can utilise Minespider’s API to build on top of the Minespider blockchain.

“This means marketplaces like Minery benefit from the security, immutability and transparency of a blockchain, without having to build their own or have any blockchain development knowledge,” Minespider said. “This enables companies to add blockchain records to existing software applications or business processes, and design completely new business models.”

Minespider Founder and CEO, Nathan Williams, said: “Marketplaces, traders and exchanges are realising their value to global supply chains is far greater than arbitrage. They play a pivotal role in handling, distribution, market making, and now traceability and responsible sourcing. We’re pleased to announce this integration with Minery as the start of a wave of blockchain traceability adoption by the mid-tier of the supply chain.”