Within the midst of the jungle we know as commerce, lies an industry that competes with the largest corporations on earth, raking in a yearly take of approximately 300 billion dollars. The industry that I am referring to, is the equine industry. Horses contribute significantly to national economies both recreationally as sport animals and agri-environmentally as work animals influencing production and trade.

In the equine marketplace, the primary driver of value is the quality of the horse lineage. Every facet of the industry in some way, shape, or form, either relies on, or is greatly influenced by the quality and genetic lines of a given horse.

Horse breeding: a difficult job

In light of the lineage of a horse being valuable to the industry as a whole, the horse breeders may have the most difficult job in this ecosystem. In order to remain competitive with their peer breeders, and encapsulate a large market share, they are tasked with three important tasks:

Understanding the relationship between pedigree and competitive characteristics such as speed and stamina in order to determine cross-breeds with optimum qualities.

Once having bred the horses, they need to expertly raise and train them.

Finally, they have to ensure that these horses will be sold.

After conducting field research with over 70 breeders, the conclusion was that there is a strong demand for reliable equine data that is also easily accessible. Data that improves informed breeding efforts is amongst the most valuable data in the equine marketplace. Often, more efficient data sets enables owners to breed their horses in a more informed manner leading to a higher percentage of quality horses. Due to a lack of a global marketplace, the breeders often collect a wealth of data themselves by creating their own databases. These breeders, who have invested in the creation of these databases, want access to a larger population to whom they can monetize that collected data.

Unfortunately, the technological infrastructure does not allow easy access to, or easy distribution of, collected equine data. Imagine the following scenario:

A top equine breeder is aiming to breed the fastest and most hardy sport horse but their efforts are restrained due to the inaccessibility of reliable data on crossing breeds. They wish to obtain all breeding information to make the most informed decision possible. However, to achieve this, they would have to contact all studbooks personally asking for pedigree and heritage reports, go through long waiting times to get what little information they are eligible to receive, and stitch the information together themselves. Even then, they cannot track many other variables within a horses characteristics and outputs that are also important to consider when breeding a top sport horse.

Data on horse lineage is often difficult to obtain, stored offline, or the data is incomplete. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to make a database that contains data that has guaranteed integrity. Even the larger breeders, who spend fortunes setting up their own databases, have great difficulty seeing any yield on these efforts. This is mainly because their databases are made in silos and not interoperable, thus never reaching a global audience. The data on horses is thus fragmented into different regional and national databases. In the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK there are over 30 different databases that all operate their own IT structures and cannot be merged without compromise.

Furthermore, we noticed that many breeders have had increasing difficulties in selling their horses simply because of the lack of trust, and lack of a reliable method for the breeders to guarantee their integrity to buyers. The industry is full of fraud, especially when it comes to the sale of top horses. A single horse can cost up to 10,000,000 dollars or more, leading many bad players to take advantage of the lack of technological advancement within the industry in order to bamboozle prospective buyers. Especially during the last decade during which the equine industry has been quickly globalizing, the amount of new fraud cases is out of control. Nowadays buyers are more aware and usually flock to the more established breeders, those who have built credibility over the years of doing business. Unfortunately, this lack of trust harms the smaller breeders within the ecosystem.

The lack of a common industry standard toward reliability and validity of data is the underlying problem crippling the growth of the industry. Until now the inconsistent means in which data is collected, lack of transparency, and the lack of a digital platform have left an industry stranded, in great need of technological advancement. Another long-standing problem with the industry is that it is influenced by subjectivity. In cases where evidence of lineage, health, or condition is available, it still lacks trust because it is often fraudulent in nature. Trust is lacking, and this persists from the large breeding or corporate ownership structures right down to the individual owner of a recreational companion.

MustangChain: swiftly accessible and reliable data facilitating trading transparency and informed breeding

MustangChain will alleviate the issues that breeders face, such as the lack of transparency, trust, and accessibility of data through an elegant two step solution. First of, it is of utmost importance that all collected data on the MustangChain platform is reliable. The data collected on MustangChain will provide undisputable and fraud proof traceability of past and current ownership, identity, breeding characteristics, and medical history via the Sealed Verification System (SVS). The SVS includes two major and inseparable components which together function to create a sealed fraud-proof verification system, hence the name.

The first step is to digitize the equine passport and put information on the MustangChain platform that can be later aggregated into ‘big data’ sets. We will start with integrating all equine passports with a NFC chip, which, upon scanning, links the user directly to a data asset on the blockchain. This data asset, or record if you will, is where all data on the horse will be collected. In other words, by scanning the NFC chip that is on the passport, possibly through a mobile application, the user will have direct access to the corresponding data on the blockchain. This data can be displayed through the Official MustangChain application that forms the interface between the user and the blockchain. Stakeholders such as veterinarians, studbooks, and in the future, federations, will be given authorization to add data to the asset, while other stakeholders such as horse enthusiasts, research institutions, and trainers will only be able to read the data recorded.

In matters regarding the privacy of information, MustangChain will develop a database that is directly linked to the blockchain and in which all private information about a horse is stored separately from the publicly accessible blockchain. That way the independent database can contain several layers of security that can only be accessed by authorized parties such as the owner, studbook, or veterinarian.

In order to ensure to all users that data recorded on the MustangChain is of high integrity, MustangChain will establish a state-of-the-art independent auditor division. All stakeholders who are authorized to write new entries are mandated to retain dated and signed source documents which support the data recorded on the MustangChain platform. If it has not been reported, signed, or dated, it did not happen, no matter how many witnesses can vouch for the action or analysis. Final data points recorded on the platform will be compared with the signed and dated source documents. All data must be consistent and accounted for.

Secondly, there is a need to swiftly access all this high integrity equine data through a global platform. Once data enters the system, MustangChain will develop Dapps to interact with this cloud of ‘big’ data in a constructive manner. One of the Dapps that can tremendously help breeders and equine scientists alike, is the Data Analytics Dapp. That is, MustangChain will make certain data recorded on the platform available for analysis by developing a one-stop database that all stakeholders can consult without issues of interoperability or regional fragmentation. The Data Analytics Dapp will utilize a tiered subscription model whereby users who compensate a higher amount of MustangChain tokens will receive a higher rank and have access to more data variable categories. The Data Analytics Dapp will provide insight into different big data sets centered around the anonymized equine variables recorded on the MustangChain platform. For example, making big data available will enable more informed breeding practices by providing the ability to couple independent horse characteristics to pedigree and heritage.

The future of MustangChain

The ambition of MustangChain is boundless but we are realistic. In order to achieve the goals that we have set out we need a strategic approach. A step by step approach to reach our final goal of a global equine platform seeded with reliable equine data. The MustangChain name should be associated with reliability and integrity. The world must know that if it is on MustangChain the data is reliable and can be used for endeavors that have a low margin for errors such as the informed breeding of top horses.

MustangChain is in negotiations with a large number of both smaller and bigger breeders in order to help them to achieve higher credibility on the data of their horses via the SVS. A global platform such as MustangChain will also to help distribute already collected data. In these negotiation governmental agencies of the highest level are involved to ensure that not only is the MustangChain solution adapted, it will become the standard. By involving a large range of stakeholder from top to bottom, we are slowly lobbying for the necessary regulatory climate in order to achieve a wider scope of effect and in due time transform the way that equine data is collected and shared.

At two ends of the spectrum, MustangChain’s overarching goal is to solve problems with equine data integrity and sharing through standardization of the means in which like-kind regulatory bodies are today attempting to capture information.

The value proposition is simple, would a breeder or buyer find value in a process that tracks the heritage, pedigree, medical history and sport results of a given horse as it relates to ownership and investment? Would highly trusted data about an equine investment that survives dispute, maximizes profitability, and minimizes risk, be valuable to participants in an antiquated, fragmented industry? We believe that it would.

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