Is it possible to track physical objects on a blockchain?

I am currently working on a project for school in which we have to come up with a product. I won't go into the mechanics of my product but essentially what my group has come up with is using tracking devices to track any object through a mobile/desktop application. When looking through tracking technologies, the idea of using blockchain technology to track physical objects came to mind.

However, I am not entirely sure if this is possible so I would like to know if it is and could it work in theory and in practicality? Has this already been done yet?

TheStandardModel

Posted 2017-11-20T19:03:33.230

Reputation: 21

Adding to Max's answer. If you track ownership each person could have unique private key and publicly known public key (linked to his identity), so the transfer of ownership is possible only if previous owner (according to database) and next owner both sign the transfer transaction. – croraf – 2017-11-20T19:49:21.437

Answers

I forget who once said this, "If you think you need to use BlockChain technology, you almost certainly don't."

BlockChain technology is designed to show proof of ownership via a proof of work mechanism that ties an expensive-to-run algorithm to a cryptographically secure chain of transactions.

If your system seeks to track ownership of objects where ownership changes regularly, and you need to prove ownership, perhaps a BlockChain solution might be applicable. However, if your objects don't regularly change ownership, and you're simply looking to track geographical position, I would recommend some other data storage system, such as a typical relational database.

Max Vernon

Posted 2017-11-20T19:03:33.230

Reputation: 1 376