International trade has been the backbone of the global economy for centuries. It fuels industries, connects economies, and promotes growth.
Global trade is colossal, with international trade transactions totaling over $25 trillion annually. The market is dynamic and integral to the flow of goods and services across borders, enabling economies to thrive.
However, despite its vital importance, international trade is often hindered by inefficiencies—complex logistics, delayed payments, lack of transparency, and high costs associated with middlemen.
But what if we told you that tokenization, through platforms like Polytrade Marketplace, is about to revolutionize everything?
Tokenized Trade on Polytrade
As many might know, Polytrade originally started as a Trade Finance protocol, tokenizing nearly $10M in trade finance before expanding into a holistic cross-asset marketplace encompassing more than 10 asset classes from 70+ protocols.
Now, Polytrade brings tokenized goods trade onto the marketplace. This is not tokenized trade finance, but tokenization of trade itself.
Tokenized shipments themselves are now traded on the Polytrade marketplace.
Long Term Partnership
To launch this segment on the Polytrade, we have partnered with large commodity and equipment suppliers and buyers across Asia and North America.
This long-term partnership shall cover repeat quarterly shipments between the parties totaling $1M+ every quarter ($5M+ annualized).
The first 2 trades took place on 16 October 2024 on the Polygon Blockchain via the Polytrade Marketplace using Polytrade’s ERC-6960 technology
| Asset | Amount (USD) | Transaction |
| INV-ABI-2024-104 | 81487.5373 | 0x80e1053486a6fdbde3b8e38e33a093d64a152b7374ce05fc74974d9e74e541a3 |
| INV-ABI-2024-102 | 291518 | 0x80e1053486a6fdbde3b8e38e33a093d64a152b7374ce05fc74974d9e74e541a3 |
These represent 81,500 KG of Oil and Gas Equipment Cargo traded between Asia, the Middle East, and North America across 4 containers. More details below:
- Port of Loading: Jebel Ali
- Port of Discharge: Houston
- Vessel: MAERSK GAIRLOCH
- 4 containers contain 126 pieces
- Measurement: 160 CBM
Why Polytrade?
International trade is currently riddled with inefficiencies from counterparty risk to high costs and payment delays.
Tokenizing the trade eliminates these issues.
Real-time settlement
International transactions via SWIFT can take up to 5 days to settle, leading to cash flow issues for both the buyer and seller. Moreover, SWIFT is prone to errors and failure with failure rates reaching 5%-10%. Such failures can further cause payment delays and often lead to impacted business operations, cause liquidity problems, and erode trust between trading partners. High transaction fees and the need for intermediary banks further increase costs, making SWIFT an expensive and time-consuming solution for cross-border payments.
Instant asset transfer
Also known as Delivery versus Payment (DvP), using Polytrade removes counterparty risk from the equation
Tranched payments
Buyers can easily complete the purchase in tranches, using the fractionalization feature in ERC-6960s
What Does this Mean for the Marketplace?
Polytrade’s vision is to be the #1 hub for tokenized assets. This means constantly bringing more utility and success stories to the marketplace for both retail and institutional use cases.
Tokenized international trade opens up a new frontier for Polytrade, opening up the marketplace to a $25T+ sector ripe for innovation.
The conclusion of the first tokenized asset trade and the commitment by the partners to use Polytrade on an ongoing basis brings in consistent volumes and builds a reputation and track record for more players to start using Polytrade as a way for International Transfers.
Polytrade is already in advanced talks with more players in the Middle East and Asia to start using the Marketplace for their transactions.
This success story helps convert those conversations.
Polytrade expertise in Trade Finance also comes in handy here, with seamless integration with financiers coming soon. With underlying trades happening on Polytrade itself, it gives Polytrade a sizable moat in the arena.
The best is yet to come.
Additional Read: Polytrade Launches First Ever RWA ‘Buy Now Pay Later’