EY Hired to Help Develop Blockchain-Based Fine Wine Trading Platform

A blockchain-based fine wine investment trading platform has selected Big Four auditing firm EY to provide technology services as its development continues.

WiV Technology enables clients to trade bottles and cases of premium wine, with the origin, quality and value of assets certified on a constantly updated blockchain.

In a news release on Aug. 12, EY said that wine will be tokenized through the use of non-fungible ERC-721 tokens on the platform.

Saving cost and time

Smart contracts are used to track wine ownership and transaction history, and the properties of every wine case are stored as detailed metadata.

The wine is secured in a bonded warehouse, and it is believed investors will be able to trade and sell these assets “at a fraction of the cost and time required previously.” Tommy Nordam Jensen, the CEO and founder of WiV Technology, said:

“Fine wine is a fully tradeable asset, and it is vitally important that provenance is protected, because provenance is the only way to prove a wine’s true value without actually opening the bottle. Currently, many wine trades often slow to a crawl because the extensive paper trails must be manually checked at every step of the process, massively reducing the potential size of the market.”

In May, EY also began providing its proprietary blockchain solution for a major new platform helping Asian consumers determine the quality, provenance and authenticity of imported European wines.