FedEx Joins Hedera Council for DLT Supply Chains

- The Hedera Council's governance model limits members to a three-year term, with a maximum of two consecutive terms, a structure designed to prevent any single entity from having undue influence. - Other members of the council include major technology companies like Google and IBM, aerospace manufacturer Boeing, and financial firms like Nomura Holdings, showcasing a cross-industry interest in the DLT. - This is not FedEx's first venture into distributed ledger technology; the company is a founding member of the Blockchain in Transportation Alliance (BiTA) and the Blockchain Research Institute. - As early as 2018, FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith stated that blockchain has the "potential to completely revolutionize trade across borders," signaling a long-term strategic interest in the technology. - The executive leading the initiative is Vishal Talwar, EVP and Chief Digital and Information Officer of FedEx Corp., and president of the company's data-focused division, FedEx Dataworks. - Hedera is not a traditional blockchain but a public Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that uses a hashgraph consensus algorithm, designed to achieve high throughput (thousands of transactions per second) with low latency. - As a council member, FedEx will be responsible for running a network node, actively participating in the maintenance and security of the Hedera network's infrastructure. - The goal of applying DLT to supply chains is to create a trusted, verifiable layer for data, which can help automate compliance checks, enhance visibility of goods in transit, and reduce friction in cross-border commerce.