Why Maersk Gave Up

1. Introduction

On November 29, 2022, Maersk, one of the world's largest container carriers, announced in a brief statement that it was shutting down a project it had launched with the claim that it would change logistics.

The project was called TradeLens. Developed together with IBM, this blockchain-based platform aimed to bring the information and document flow of global ocean shipping under a single shared digital roof.

A blockchain is a technology where records are kept simultaneously by every participant in a network rather than by a single central party, and no single party can alter those records on their own.

So why did one of the industry's most powerful players give up on a system it had invested so much effort in?

2. The Journey of a Single Container

Imagine a container full of roses shipped from Kenya to the Netherlands. On paper, it's a simple job: the flowers are packed, loaded into a container, carried by ship, and delivered to the buyer.

In reality, it's far more complicated. When Maersk traced a shipment like this end-to-end in 2014, it found that around 30 different people and organizations were involved in the journey of a single container, exchanging more than 200 messages and documents. The farmer, the exporter, the freight forwarder, customs authorities, port officials, banks, insurers, and the carrier — each had their own system, their own paperwork, and their own approval process.

The cost of this complexity was heavy, too. When a document was delayed, the container waited at the port, and the roses, a perishable product, lost value with every hour lost. When a document went missing, or two organizations' records didn't match, even finding where the problem was could take a long time. The real problem wasn't moving the goods themselves — it was moving the information around the goods.

TradeLens emerged as a solution to exactly this problem.

3. The Big Promise and the Launch (2018–2020)

Maersk and IBM announced in January 2018 that they were joining forces to solve this mess. TradeLens was officially unveiled in August 2018.

Everyone involved in a shipment would see the same information at the same time. The moment a container reached a port, was loaded onto a ship, or cleared customs, that information would be instantly accessible to all authorized parties. Documents would be kept in one shared system instead of getting lost in emails, faxes, and paper files. And thanks to blockchain, no one would be able to alter those records after the fact.

In 2019, Maersk's biggest rivals MSC and CMA CGM joined, followed by Hapag-Lloyd and ONE in 2020. On paper, a large share of the world's container shipping was now under the same roof.

In those years, blockchain was the most talked-about topic at logistics conferences, and TradeLens was the most concrete example of that excitement. The industry's biggest players had sat down at the same table, and all that was left was to wait for the system to start working. But that's not what happened.

4. The Cracks

4.1. Everyone Waited for Everyone Else

A system like TradeLens could only create value once everyone joined. If only ten of the thirty parties in a shipment used the system, you still had to communicate with the remaining twenty through email and paper.

This created a vicious cycle. Companies waited, thinking the system would become useful once others joined — and those others waited too. Because everyone was waiting, the system never got crowded enough. Parties other than the carriers — exporters, freight forwarders, and banks — never joined in the numbers expected.

4.2. Paper Didn't Disappear

The bill of lading, one of the most important documents in ocean shipping, was still very much a part of life — on paper.

The problem was this: in many countries, the law didn't treat a digital version of the bill of lading as equally valid as the paper original. So companies ended up doing the same work both digitally and on paper, which turned the system from a convenience into extra workload.

4.3. Would You Put Your Data on a Competitor's System?

Underneath all these problems lay a deeper issue. Competitors had joined the platform, but joining and actually sharing data were not the same thing.

Behind the platform stood Maersk — a direct competitor to the other ocean carriers. For these companies, putting data into TradeLens meant entrusting their customer lists, shipment volumes, and routes to a system built by a rival. And it wasn't just about data security, either. Even if the platform technically protected the data, Maersk was still the one setting the rules. Today's terms could change tomorrow. For a carrier, tying its own operations to a competitor's infrastructure meant losing bargaining power in the long run.

Interestingly, other major carriers and port operators got together and built their own joint blockchain network called GSBN. In other words, the problem wasn't the technology — it was who controlled it. The industry didn't reject blockchain. It rejected Maersk's blockchain.

5. The End

In its closing statement, Maersk said the platform had not achieved the global industry collaboration needed to be commercially sustainable. TradeLens was effectively shut down in the first quarter of 2023.

The news was met with two different reactions in the industry. One camp interpreted it as "the end of blockchain in logistics." The other argued that the problem wasn't the technology, but how the project was structured.

6. So What Was the Real Story?

Looking back at TradeLens's story, almost none of the cracks actually came from the technology itself. The system worked. What didn't work was trust, participation, and the business model.

The most important lesson from this story is this: a shared infrastructure meant to be used by competing companies can't be owned by any one of those competitors. Still, TradeLens wasn't a wasted experiment. It played an important role in getting the industry to seriously start talking about document digitization. Today's work on digital bills of lading and shared data standards builds on the lessons learned from this experience.

7. The Question Left Behind

TradeLens left behind a question: Is it possible to build trust without sharing data?

Back then, that seemed impossible. But technology has come a long way since. In the next post, we'll talk about what used to seem impossible.

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This post was originally published on LogisticsIQ.