MassRoots, Inc. (MSRT) Forms Subsidiary for Blockchain-Based Solutions for the Cannabis Industry

“We believe blockchain has the potential to enable the cannabis industry to operate more efficiently and with a greater degree of accountability and transparency,” stated MassRoots Chief Executive Officer Isaac Dietrich. “MassRoots looks forward to being a pioneer in exploring blockchain-based solutions for the multi-billion dollar cannabis industry.”

“The blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of economic transactions that can be programmed to record not just financial transactions but virtually everything of value,” according to Dan and Alex Tapscott in the Blockchain Revolution (2016). The most well-known application to blockchain technology has been cryptocurrencies, which have grown to a market valued at more than $600 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.com. The broadening of this technology spans many other applications and creates various opportunities within the regulated cannabis market.

Seed-to-Sale Tracking
Distributed ledger technology provides a greater degree of reliability and accuracy on the metadata associated with products — times, dates, locations, quantities — which have the potential to reduce friction in the cannabis market-place, save businesses valuable resources, and provide greater transparency to government regulators. According to Bloomberg, IBM is also exploring how blockchain can improve seed-to-sale traceability in the cannabis market. MassRoots Blockchain is exploring how this new technology can improve its point-of-sale system, MassRoots Retail, formerly known as Odava.

Smart Contracts
Blockchain enables the development of contracts that automatically execute when certain parameters are met — for example, a dispensary can automatically order more supply of a particular strain when its inventories reach a certain threshold. The smart contract has the potential to add substantial efficiency to the supply chain and resource planning processes within the cannabis industry. MassRoots Blockchain is exploring how to integrate this technology with its platform.

Eliminating Intermediaries
In the sharing economy as it exists today, buyers and sellers have to go through intermediaries to conduct a transaction (such as AirBnB for short-term rentals and Uber for ride-sharing). The blockchain enables peer-to-peer transactions without third parties, meaning that personal and business reputation can be verified and thus more reliable. MassRoots Blockchain is exploring how this can be applied to producers of cannabis and the dispensaries that purchase from them.

Corporate Governance
Blockchain has the potential to make the validation and results of elections fully-transparent and immediately accessible online. MassRoots Blockchain is exploring how distributed-ledger technology can be applied to proxy voting and giving MassRoots’ shareholders a greater degree of transparency and communication.