An enterprise blockchain platform launched in 2022 to broad industry attention has been confirmed by its vendor as being, on closer technical inspection, a Microsaft Excel workbook with conditional formatting and a macro. The clarification was issued following an independent architectural review commissioned by one of the platform’s anchor clients.
The platform, marketed as a permissioned distributed ledger for trade finance, was described at launch as offering “immutable, real-time, cryptographically secured shared records across counterparties”. The review found one record, one counterparty with edit access, and a copy of the workbook stored in a shared drive folder named “Final v7”.
The vendor said the finding did not alter its assessment of the platform’s strategic value to clients. In a statement, the vendor confirmed that the platform had “delivered measurable benefits”, including the formalisation of a previously verbal process and “the creation of a single source of truth”. The single source of truth is currently saved on a shared drive belonging to the procurement team.
The Architecture, Reviewed
The independent review was conducted over four weeks by a major consulting firm. The firm declined to be named, but confirmed in its findings that the platform consisted of one Excel workbook, one VBA macro, and a scheduled task that emailed the workbook to participants overnight. Distribution was achieved by attaching the file to an email. Immutability was achieved by not granting anyone update access. Cryptographic security was implied by the use of password protection, which was the same password the consulting firm had used for its 2019 client portal.
Asked whether the architecture met any of the technical claims made at launch, the firm said the workbook was “stable, well-formatted, and consistent with industry practice for trade finance reconciliation in 2003”. The firm did not comment on whether 2003 industry practice met the 2022 marketing claims.
The vendor noted that the platform had supported “more than four billion dollars of underlying trade flows” in its first three years of operation. Independent verification was not available. The four billion figure was calculated by adding together the values reported in cell B14 of each monthly version of the workbook.
“The architecture has matured iteratively in response to client feedback,” a vendor representative said. “We deliberately took a pragmatic approach. The platform delivers what clients need, in the format they understand. That format is a workbook.”
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Anchor clients have indicated they are reviewing the findings. A senior executive at one of the participating banks said the institution had “noted the technical clarification”, and was “assessing the implications for the broader DLT roadmap”. The DLT roadmap is currently being revised. The previous version is stored on the shared drive.
One participant told The Ledger the platform had been working acceptably, and that switching to a different solution would require a procurement process. A procurement process would require a business case. A business case would require a benefits analysis. The benefits analysis would require a comparison to the existing solution. The existing solution is the workbook.
Industry observers said the finding raised broader questions about due diligence on enterprise blockchain projects. A senior compliance professional, asked to comment, said the institution’s internal vendor risk assessment had given the platform a “medium-low” risk rating, citing the absence of customer data and the small footprint of the technology stack. The technology stack consisted of Excel.
The Vendor’s Position
The vendor has launched a new product. The new product is marketed as “AI-native distributed infrastructure for the post-blockchain era”. Asked whether the new product addressed the technical gaps identified in the review, the vendor confirmed that the new product was a different workbook with an additional sheet.
The additional sheet contains an embedded prompt to a large language model. The vendor described this as “integrated AI orchestration”. The model is queried at the point at which a user types into cell A1.
The vendor’s chief executive, in remarks to a recent industry forum, described the trajectory of the platform as “a journey of architectural maturity”. The journey began with a workbook. The journey is currently passing through a workbook. The next phase of the journey, the chief executive said, would deliver “true distributed capability”. True distributed capability has been retained as a strategic goal. It will be available as part of a future release.
A second consulting firm has been engaged to undertake a follow-up review. The follow-up review will be conducted over six weeks. The findings will be presented to the steering committee. The steering committee meets quarterly. The steering committee’s minutes are kept in a workbook.
