Blockchain proposed to use to track smartphone cobalt supplies

The Democratic Republic of Congo has mines where the child labour is still used, which for some people is so unacceptable they are ready to develop a sophisticated blockchain structure to track the origin of cobalt, a metal critical for digital devices in the first world.

The exact personalities behind this project greatly resembling that De Beers’ diamond initiative are unknown at the press time. The possibility of establishing such a system becomes more high if it’s endorsed by the Chinese manufacturers. Even though there were some efforts of the two last American presidents to move digital manufacturing to America, China still remains the world’s factory.

The Responsible Cobalt Initiative includes major businesses both from China and the United States, and the endorsement from this alliance aimed to end unethically-mined cobalt supplies could also help the project team.

There is, however, a problem: the aforementioned initiative of De Beers did not solve the task of eliminating the supply channels of blood diamonds, as recently highlighted by the representative of the Canadian firm familiar with the structure. This means that the developers of this new cobalt supply blockchain should at least find out where did De Beers go wrong in order not to repeat their mistakes.