‘Big Four’ Giant PwC Invests in Blockchain Start-Up VeChain

One of the ‘big four’ auditors and accounting firms in the world, PwC invests in blockchain start-up VeChain, a China-based Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology company that specialises in supply chain management.

PricewaterhouseCoopers acquired an ownership interest in VeChain on May 4th, via it’s Hong Kong and Singapore arms, stating that the investment is part of a larger strategic partnership to assist large-scale businesses.

Raymund Chao, the chairman of PwC Asia Pacific and Greater China has said that through the relationship it aims to:

“build a trusted and distributed business ecosystem to help address long-standing challenges in supply chain management, food trust and anti-counterfeiting areas.”

The strategic partnership could put it ahead of it’s ‘big four’ competitors, Deloitte EY and KPMG.  Instead of building its own permission based ledger, it will utilise the widely adopted VeChain network.

The blockchain platform connects technologies such as NFC, RFID, QR codes, and barcodes with products, allowing items to be tracked, solving a variety of issues, including the prevention of counterfeiting.

One of the first partnerships was with China’s largest fine wine importer D.I.G.  Using IoT private keys and blockchain, ownership of each bottle is linked to the bottle’s ID, which is scanned each step of the way, ensuring its authenticity.

It was revealed that PwC and VeChain discussed the major benefits to the pharmaceutical/medical, logistics and transport industries, as well as governments.  Sunny Lu, the CEO of VeChain said that he hopes that:

“With people’s increasing awareness and knowledge of blockchain, ‘killer’ applications are sure to emerge, and initially these are most likely to occur outside of the financial sector.”

This week details of VEThor and the THOR token were released, together with VEN tokens, the revolutionary two-coin system is designed to prevent transaction fees from being exposed to any volatility in the price of VEN.

The VEN token is currently the world’s 16th strongest cryptocurrency, with a market valuation of $2.4 billion.

VeChainThor is a smart contract platform that is fully programmable, similar to Ethereum.  The aim is to assist branded and reputable enterprises to design a high standard of dapps, ico projects, applications and tools.