Coffee

The breadth and complexity of the coffee supply chain globally makes traceability a pretty difficult principle to guarantee. The path of the beans is long and articulated: once they grow up they first reach the cooperatives, then move on to the export, shipping and import companies, face the roasting process, and then be managed by distributors and retailers, before reaching the end consumer.

The Seattle-based giant Starbucks is exploring the Azure Blockchain Cloud Service from Microsoft to track coffee. The partnership will also use other major innovative technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), cryptocurrency, etc., to strengthen its bean-to-cup and further resolve prevailing problems in various sections of services.

From the new report, it seems that there is substantial equity held by Starbucks – the biggest coffee and snack provider globally – in the forthcoming cryptocurrency platform Bakkt. The company has earned its shares as part of a jointly constructive agreement. Starbucks’ partnership with Bakkt was initially revealed in August 2018. It is aimed at enabling bitcoin payments.

The president of Tanzania, East Africa, John Pombe Magufuli is one of the world leaders trying to fight corruption from all government institutions. He made a surprise visit to the Ministry of Finance the first day he was sworn in as the president, that brought confidence in public towards the war against ‘cancer’ corruption.

Earlier this month, Starbucks partnered with Microsoft, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), and BCG to establish a new digital currency company Bakkt. The project will allegedly allow customers to buy their favourite beverages at Starbucks with bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin has recently surpassed the value of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and hovers above $100 billion. However, the wider public is yet to be introduced to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Even so, in October 2013, Bitcoin ATMs made their debut at the Bitcoiniac`s kiosk in one of Vancouver’s coffee shops. Today, just four years later, there are more than 8 million Google search results for “Bitcoin ATM near me’’.

Despite all the negative attitude towards Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, in August employees of Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia had an opportunity to buy hot drinks for Bitcoins from the coffee stand located right in the same building as the bank’s central office in Moscow.