Kynetix, a UK-based provider of solutions which enable electronic representation of physical commodities in the financial and banking world, has announced its partnership with Imperial College London to develop the first commodity-specific blockchain operating model complete with working software.

According to the announcement, the alliance commenced with the creation of a Target Operating Model for a blockchain-centric commodities platform. This has now been implemented within Sentinel, Kynetix’s specialist commodity title and post-trade platform.

“Our years of experience in delivering solutions that bring trust and transparency to commodity exchanges and the banking world gives us real insight. It seems to us that the commodities world has an opportunity to jump ahead and embrace the latest technology advances to provide business advantage for the specialist commodities industry”, Matt Dolton, Director at Kynetix said.” We’re delighted to be working with the thought leaders at Imperial College to create solutions for real world challenges.”

Imperial College London, a science-based university, is committed to developing the next generation of researchers, scientists and academics through collaboration across disciplines. The Imperial College Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering aspires to be a leading international centre for ongoing research and application activity related to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

“Working on innovative real-world use cases for blockchain technology is a key focus for us. We are delighted to be working closely with Kynetix in this fascinating application space”, Prof William Knottenbelt, Director of the Imperial College Centre for Cryptocurrency Research and Engineering, said.

Scott Riley, Blockchain Lead for Kynetix, noted that there is still a lot of ambiguity around distributed ledger technology (DLT), particularly around specific details such as liquidity and interfacing with fiat currency systems.

“What we see is a unique opportunity to address some inherent challenges in the physical commodities world which are not dependant on legacy securities infrastructure. The two distinct work streams we are addressing with Imperial College are high-payback use cases. These allow our consortium participants to take real advantage of pragmatic DLT based solutions”, Riley added.

In November 2015, Kynetix announced the launch of a Commodity-focused blockchain consortium with participants from across major commodity exchanges, investment banks, clearing houses, and brokers.