Deloitte’s Blockchain Veteran Leaves to Build Decentralized Supply Chain

Eric Piscini, Deloitte’s global blockchain leader has decided to leave the Big Four accounting firm to become the chief operating officer at Citizens Reserve, an early-stage blockchain-based startup.

According to Forbes, Piscini grew Deloitte’s blockchain department in 2012 from three people to 1,200 today. The blockchain department has also grown to become a $50 million operation.

Citizens Reserve is in the process of raising $150 million. Their goal is to shift existing logistics and supply chain systems onto a blockchain network. Their blockchain network, however, combines two different blockchains. These include the public Ethereum blockchain network and a permissioned private blockchain network.

The early stage startup believes that a public and permissioned blockchain system can help large companies like JPMorgan comply with certain regulatory restrictions, especially in the supply chain industry.

“We are building the Ethereum of supply chain,” said Piscini. He also recently grew the company from eight team members to 18 earlier this year.

Citizens Reserve’s public permissioned blockchain network

Citizens Reserve’s goal is to build a global and decentralized supply chain network. At its fundamental level, Citizens Reserve is simply a shared database. However, unlike existing supply chain databases, it will be a more transparent, seamless, and efficient database that can be used by companies at every level of the supply chain. These include retailers, distributors, manufacturers, and suppliers.

“The private blockchain is more for supply chain transactions, and the public blockchain is used for payments,” said Piscini. “There is a bridge that we created that is kind of our secret sauce.”

Citizens Reserve is also building a consortium of members in the defense sector. The company is also a member of the blockchain startups consortium, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Chamber of Digital Commerce and blockchain transportation consortium BITA.

Citizens Reserve is currently working with three companies that are providing the defense industry an older centralized supply chain software. “We have decided to start with the defense industry because we have relationships with key participants in the defense industry, and it’s a very broken supply chain across the globe,” said Piscini. “We have market participants from that industry that are being onboarded into the consortium now.”

Citizens Reserve’s mixed model of capital raising

The members of the Citizen Reserve’s blockchain will be using ZERV, a cryptocurrency token as it will enable almost instant, borderless transactions. According to the company’s early draft of their whitepaper, ZERV is also backed by reserve assets giving the token a guaranteed value of $0.01. The startup expects to issue a total of 50 billion tokens which would provide Citizen Reserve’s blockchain network value of approximately $500 million.

While most blockchain-based companies would sell their tokens in an initial coin offering (ICO), it has unfortunately raised a lot of regulatory concerns. Citizens Reserve is, therefore, raising $150 million in capital in a new way. The new approach is a mix between a traditional fundraise, an ICO and an initial public offering (IPO).

The first $2.3 million will come from family and friends via convertible notes. Once all $150 million is raised, these notes can be converted to tokens in late 2018. According to investor documents given to Forbes, the second phase will require venture capital firms which will bring the total funds raised to $42 million.

BitStarz Player Wins Record-Breaking $2,459,124! Could you be next to win big? >>>
Blokt is a leading independent privacy resource that maintains the highest possible professional and ethical journalistic standards.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here