Major retailers are making moves into the blockchain, as new research suggests that annual revenues from blockchain retail asset tracking will rise to $4.5 billion by 2023.

French luxury brand group LVMH, owner of Louis Vuitton amongst others, is working with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform to prove the authenticity of expensive goods.

This is based on JPMorgan’s Quorum offering, which runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

The project is code-named AURA and is set to go live in May or June with Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. It will then be extended to the company’s other brands and eventually those of its competitors, according to a CoinDesk report.

The distributed ledger technology can also be used to explore the protection of creative intellectual property, as well as exclusive offers, events for customers and anti-advertising fraud.

Separately, the Hershey Company has joined non-profit blockchain consortium AdLedger to help trace its of cacao from bean to bar, according to the chocolate manufacturer’s head of media and technology Vinny Rinaldi.

Founded by IBM, Tegna and MadHive in 2018, it focuses on the digital advertising market.

The moves come as Juniper Research analysis suggested that blockchain’s versatility offers retailers transparency in the supply chain, customer loyalty management and operational efficiencies.

It explained that retailers can opt for different deployment approaches. The likes of Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba or JD.com are launching their own Blockchain-as-a-Service platforms, while bricks and mortar retailers like Walmart have opted to partner with specialist providers.

Juniper forecasted that the number of retailers using blockchain in the US alone will grow by over 7,500 per cent between 2018 and 2023 to reach nearly 15,000 by the end of 2023.

The research stated that IBM has established itself as the leading provider of blockchain technology in this sector, combining agnostic blockchain solutions, extensive commercial deployments and high-profile partnerships.

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