Use case: Supply chain

The problem

A supply chain spans many organizations that don’t fully trust each other — suppliers, carriers, warehouses, retailers. Each records custody events in its own systems. When a dispute arises (“was this batch refrigerated the whole way?”, “who handled it on the 4th?”), there’s no shared, tamper-proof record everyone can rely on.

How AeternisLog helps

Anchor each custody event’s fingerprint on a permissioned ledger that all parties can verify against — without putting sensitive commercial data on-chain.

1. Record events under a domain such as shipments — handoffs, sensor readings, inspections — each as a JSON payload.
2. Anchor their Merkle roots on the blockchain, write-once and timestamped.
3. Verify independently: any party recomputes the root from the records it holds and checks it against the chain. A match proves the records are exactly what was anchored.

Why it fits multi-party chains

• No central trust. Verification needs only the records and the on-chain root — not trust in whoever ran the API.
• Selective sharing. Only fingerprints are anchored; the underlying payloads stay private and are shared on a need-to-know basis.
• Provenance over time. Timestamped anchors build an ordered, tamper-evident history of custody.
• Per-tenant isolation. Each organization’s records are isolated, with optional per-tenant ledgers (channels).

A concrete flow

# A carrier records a refrigerated-transit reading
POST /api/v1/shipments/records  {"source":"reefer-04","payload":{"shipment":"S-2231","tempC":3.4,"at":"2026-06-22T09:00:00Z"}}

# Anchor the batch
POST /api/v1/shipments/records/batch

# A downstream party verifies the chain of custody it received
aeternislog verify --file custody.csv --api https://anchor.example.com --domain shipments --batch-id <batch_id>

The same independent proof underpins compliance, recalls, and dispute resolution.