DMX Announces VINblock; Blockchain for Everyday Car Business

Dealer Market Exchange is introducing a new take on how dealers, car makers, vendors and consumers may all soon be doing business together on blockchain. The powerful technology behind cryptocurrencies is already flexing its muscle with new services from Microsoft, IBM and Amazon, and DMX has now stepped into the ring with some muscle of their own.

VINblock is the first in line of their business blockchain solutions menu for the automotive community. Reportedly designed to track the lifetime activity of any vehicle by its unique Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), a new industry ecosystem would be created by their participating users.

“Our VINblock permanent, shared ledger, based on Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology, provides a critical value-add for building a foundation of connected mobility for OEMs, dealers and consumers to conduct business well into the 21st century,” said Jason Bennick, CEO and Co-Founder of DMX. “As we innovate next-generation solutions across automotive, we’re striving to create new channels that can operate faster and more efficiently than most everything out there, and in a new, low-cost and fully trusted, secure environment.”

Based on Hyperledger Fabric permissioned blockchain and related technologies, VINblock’s permanent shared ledger of VINs aims to provide accurate, timely tracking of vehicle identity, ownership changes and status in DMX markets. This approach offers significant advantages on trust, security, provenance, accuracy, cost and speed over traditional, disparate database systems, applications and integration methods.

“Blockchain is just one of our key technologies along with automation, AI, analytics, IoT and intelligent API’s that we’re integrating in our mobile, cloud platform and solutions that deliver strategic advantages for all our customers,” stated Wes Reid, DMX Co-Founder and Head of Technology.

VINblock will combine on-chain data, private data, off-chain data and services to efficiently deliver the information needed by applications hosted by DMX and their other partners.

Users will access VINblock through their mobile devices on the DMX platform. At enterprise level, OEMs are provided additional, secure, integration options including DMX’s REST API and the VINblock shared ledger network.

“Our partnership with the Hyperledger project helped us drive faster on our blockchain work. We are leveraging key Fabric platform features in VINblock: the new smart contract program model, private data, operations management features, and more,” said Jim Mason, Director of DMX Foundry, their blockchain and AI innovation lab.

DMX is looking at a list of more permanent, shared ledgers that reference VINblock to integrate across their full application suite and proprietary market.

VINblock arrives in 2019, with a first working model being presented at the Hyperledger Global Forum being held on December 12, in Basel, Switzerland. DMX believes that the VINblock protocol and their business blockchain technologies will continue to rapidly evolve based on the needs of the automotive market going forward.