Ox-Chain: Towards secure and trustworthy circular economies through distributed ledger technologies

Ox-Chain项目回应了全球咨询公司麦肯锡为英国慈善机构乐施会（Oxfam）确定的具体挑战，该挑战突出了现有商业模式中损失了多少价值，目前该模式将70-80%的二手衣服送到回收中心。研究小组提出，通过使用分布式账本技术，例如支持比特币数字货币的区块链，可以开发一种不同的商业模式，其中包括捐赠者，乐施会的顾客和员工，帮助他们鉴定二手物品的价值，并帮助他们转移到可以出售的地方。乐施会在1940年代发展的捐赠模式，至今仍依赖个人对捐赠物品的价值作出判断。一个人不可能知道一件物品在哪里可以得到更好的使用或珍惜-结果是许多物品没有到达乐施会网络内的地方，在那里它们可能被转售，而不是被回收。分布式账本等互联网技术有可能将670家乐施会商店的网络变成一个在线拍卖平台，数千人的集体知识可以在这个平台上竞标，以保留世界上的物品。这样一个项目提供了重要的见解，让我们了解分散技术如何更好地支持企业和社会，因为我们正在向所谓的循环经济迈进。“循环经济”是指资源尽可能长时间地使用，在使用过程中提取其最大价值，然后在每个使用寿命结束时回收材料。然而，如果更多的人参与商业、社区和慈善机构生态系统中物品和材料的估值，那么我们必须找到保护它们的方法。转向共享经济，技术帮助我们将不再需要的东西转移到更有价值的地方，有可能破坏现有的信任，身份和隐私模式。使用分布式账本技术来管理权限和隐私，从而建立参与者的信任，这提供了一个重要的机会来展示重塑我们经济运作方式的潜力。

The Ox-Chain project responds to specific challenges identified by global consultants McKinsey & Company for the UK based charity Oxfam that highlights how much value is lost within the existing business model, which currently sends between 70-80% of its received second hand clothes to a recycling centre. The research team propose that by using distributed ledger technology, such as the Blockchain that supports the Bitcoin digital currency, a different business model can be developed that involves the donors, the shoppers and the staff at Oxfam in identifying the value of second hand items and helping them to move to places where they will can be sold.The donation model that was developed in the 1940s by Oxfam still relies on individuals to make a judgement about the value of donated items. It is impossible for one person to know where an item can be better used or cherished - the result is that many items do not reach places within the Oxfam network where they might be resold and not recycled. Internet technologies such as distributed ledgers have the potential to turn the network of 670 Oxfam shops into an online auctioning platform, in which the collective knowledge of thousands of people can bid to keep items in the world. Such a project offers significant insights into how decentralised technologies can better support business and society as we move toward what is described as a Circular Economy. A 'Circular Economy' in one in which resources are kept in-use for as long as possible, and their maximum value extracted whilst in use followed by the recovery of materials at the end of each service life. However, if more people are to become involved in the valuation of objects and materials within the ecosystems of business, communities and charities then we have to find ways to protect them. Moving to a sharing economy in which technology helps us to move things that we no longer need to places where they will be more valued, has the potential to disrupt existing models of trust, identity and privacy. The use of distributed ledger technologies to manage permissions and privacy in such a way as to build the trust of participants offers a significant opportunity to demonstrate the potential to reshape our concepts of how our economies operate.