Homeland Security Assigns Mavennet to Track Canadian Oil Exports to the U.S.
- Mavennet will have to modify their current oil tracking platform so it can be used by Customs and Border Protection.
- SVIP Technical Director, Anil John, backed up the interest of CBP towards tracking the origin of imported oil.
Patrick Mandic, CEO and co-founder of Mavennet, talking about how scaling and ensuring interoperability between blockchain protocols is key for broader use. Scale AI
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has appointed Canadian blockchain company Mavennet to create a platform that tracks cross-border oil operations.
An initial funding of $182,700 comes as part of the Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) by DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate. According to the contract, Mavennet will modify its oil tracking platforms to fit the needs of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) branch of DHS.
This project is no coincidence as America is Canada’s biggest oil importer. Information coming from the U.S. government clearly shows that 120,000,000 barrels of crude oil were transported per month during the first half of 2019.
We should mention that, no matter how big the funding is, Mavennet are not able to cover the entire market immediately. It will take them a few years to do so.
The Canadian company intends to use the initial funding to build a PoC and gradually continue with demonstrations and pilot programs for up to two years. During the fourth and final phase of the program they will perform field testing.
CEO of Mavennet, Patrick Mandic, noted that the firm has been engaged in the field since 2015. Previously they developed Toronto Montreal Exchange’s on-chain natural gas platform. As for the upcoming DHS work his views are:
“This project is a strong building block to help a much needed digital transformation of the O&G space, which is the big picture we are after.”
Anil John, SVIP Technical Director clarified that as web-based identification standards go on to progress, the Mavennet platform’s “digital auditability” would be very important for the future.
He explained:
“Accurately tracking the evidence of oil flow through pipelines and refinement between the U.S. and Canada and attributing oil imports with the accurate composition and country of origin are of great interest to CBP.”
Of course, this is not the first financial push by SVIP. Formerly, they invested almost $200,000 in Texas-based company Factom to deploy blockchain-secured cameras along the U.S. border.
- Bybit is the latest exchange following Binance and OKX to announce its departure from the Canadian market due to “recent regulatory development”.
- Canadian nationals will no longer be able to open new accounts starting Wednesday, while existing users have until 30 September to withdraw their assets from the platform.
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- Canadian customers who have no funds in their Paxos accounts will have their accounts automatically closed on 9 May, while the rest will be disabled on 2 June.
- Paxos is not the only company to be leaving Canada, with cryptocurrency exchanges dYdX and OKX saying they will wind down their businesses in the country due to “new regulations”.
- Crypto exchange OKX noted that its decision to cease operations in Canada and exit the country was due to “new regulations”.
- New users will be unable to open accounts starting 24 March, while all other users have until 22 June to close trading positions and withdraw their crypto and fiat assets.