CargoX used a smart contract-powered bill of lading to reduce transfer and payment times to four minutes. FreightWaves spoke with CargoX’s CEO Stefan Kukman by phone.

MoLo Solutions did $20M in revenue in its first twelve months of operations and is on a $70M run rate for its second year. FreightWaves interviewed CEO Andrew Silver and President Matthew Vogrich.

Peter Stefanovich of Left Lane Associates, an M&A advisory firm for the transportation industry, talked to us about the current outlook for M&A and why now is the perfect time to sell.

Techpertise together with TMW Systems …Transport blockchain startups have shifted their strategies from ICOs and token sales to traditional VC raises and the brand new thing: security token offerings.

Private equity group Summit Partners has acquired cloud-based TMS provider MercuryGate, and wants to bring the platform to Europe after fixing implementation issues.

The Journal of Commerce wants to prohibit us from ever quoting or linking to their content again. We just want information to be free.

We visualized the performance metrics of the publicly-traded truckload carriers over the past six quarters, using TCA InGauge’s data.

There’s mounting pushback among developing nations that China’s ambitious infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, is a debt trap. Countries using Chinese financing have seen public debt soar to unsustainable levels, and they’re increasingly worried about asset seizures.

Transpacific container rates post gains; United States and Mexico try to reach an agreement on the automotive trade; what Amazon did last week; Lloyd’s of London rethinks marine insurance; Mexico City’s new airport has uncertain future; tanker market faces added pressure from US-China spat.

SONAR’s new index shows the cost difference for Asian exporters moving goods into East Coast or West Coast ports. When combined with trucking spot prices, the Panama spread helps explain recent shifts in trade flows.

Uber Freight is gobbling up $500M per year; the US and China hit each other with a new round of tariffs; Georgia Ports extends its inland intermodal network; Saudi Arabia’s Aramco IPO indefinitely delayed; cannabis supply chains mature; Houston is now an oil exporter.

By offering truck drivers and dock workers micropayments to upload data to the blockchain, Fr8 Network is changing the calculus of technology adoption and pushing the transportation industry forward.

Trident Transport has doubled its revenue every year since it began operations in 2014, and was just named the fastest growing company in Chattanooga, a hothouse for brokerages and freight startups.

Transpacific container rates continue to gain momentum; UPS files blockchain patent applications; Uber is uncertain about self-driving cars; Elon Musk doubles-down on ‘no sleep’; cautious optimism for US-China trade talks lifts equities markets; container lines expect profits in the back half of 2018.

Microsoft and IBM’s enterprise blockchain projects consume a lot of media bandwidth, but there is more exciting and ambitious work being done in transport and logistics by a thriving community of startups.

RTW Air Services SA, a Swiss General Sales & Service Agent (GSSA) for a substantial number of international air carriers, is the latest member of the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

Shippers feel like they’re in uncharted territory even a year into an extremely strong trucking cycle, and they’re adapting in a number of ways, including building depth into routing guides, accepting lower service levels, and extending tender lead times.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) spoke to FreightWaves about his efforts to rein in what he called the Trump administration’s abuse of authority in imposing tariffs on the United States’ allies and trade partners.

Musk’s Twitter habit has gotten him into serious trouble—he’s either manipulating TSLA stock on false information or given up all his leverage in a Saudi buyout negotiation.

XYO Network, a company bringing realtime location data to the blockchain, has announced its membership in the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

Intermodal tightness has pumped the hub of hubs, the Chicago freight market especially on lanes paralleling major railroads; meanwhile a minor heatwave in St. Louis may have been behind a massive surge in reefer turndowns.

Intelligent Audit’s new white paper about auditing parcel carrier invoices identifies a significant opportunity for shippers to gain freight cost visibility, reduce their spend, and get leverage for more favorable contract negotiations.

Elon Musk said that Saudi Arabia wants to buy Tesla; The New York Times wakes up to the driver pay issue; Amazon touts its private label brands ahead of the holiday season; lidar maker Quanergy appears to be struggling; Chicago’s mysterious surge in turndowns.

‘Work hard, play hard’ with a purpose: Redwood Logistics employees competed to raise money for a charity pairing up struggling combat veterans with horses in a therapeutic wilderness setting.

Seven acquisitions in the past year have nearly doubled Daseke Inc.’s topline revenue; Aveda Transportation in particular is a high-performing division commanding rich per-mile rates.

There are strategic reasons for the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund to consider a Tesla acquisition: the Saudis have the least diversified economy of any OPEC member and are perfectly positioned to supply solar power to Europe and the Indian subcontinent.

Techpertise together with TMW Systems …Millions of IoT devices are uploading vast quantities of data to the cloud, clogging network bandwidth and creating huge data lakes that still have to be navigated. It’s time for computing power to decentralize again, and move back to onboard devices.

Borderless Coverage allows brokers and freight forwarders to instantly secure Mexican cargo insurance for loads at about half the cost with the click of a button, removing barriers to international trade.

McLeod Software will launch a new product that uses machine learning algorithms to process inbound carrier emails in a broker’s inbox and automatically match them up with available loads.

State-backed Asian container lines have plans to rapidly expand their capacity; meanwhile Maersk cuts its guidance for 2018 by nearly a billion dollars in EBITDA.

XPO Logistics’ CFO Hardig resigns; Shanghai – Los Angeles container rates spike; watch heavy haulers move SpaceX rockets; Canadian National publishes its first annual ‘Grain Plan’; meet the teen who rides in a self-driving Waymo vehicle every morning.

A team of former Nokia Research engineers has built a hardware-agnostic video telematics platform that is already being white-labeled by some of the most important telematics service providers.

After helping drivers out with automatic detention and its Power-Only program, Convoy has turned its attention to shippers, offering guaranteed, instantly bookable coverage of loads at realtime market rates.

Hub Group’s earnings per share at $0.66 beat Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $0.50, but executives said that the third and fourth quarters will be even stronger, and margins will grow even against tough comps.

Stifel’s super-team of equities analysts took a hard look at trade war risk for carriers in every mode and various types of logistics service providers. Dry bulk maritime is the most exposed, while air cargo is the least. Railroads and intermodal carriers like JB Hunt and HUB Group also have significant risk.

Techpertise together with TMW Systems …Smart city technology, which connects people, vehicles, infrastructure, and organizations, has come to Columbus, Ohio. The city announced its Connected Vehicle Environment project which seeks to reduce congestion and accidents on the city’s busiest roadways.

project44’s realtime visibility solutions into LTL, truckload, and rail shipments are now being augmented by worldwide parcel visibility, the company announced this morning.

Sophisticated freight brokerages can widen their margins when rates soften faster than shippers realize, but now’s a risky time to quote spot loads, because historical data suggests the market is about to tighten again.

The summer slump continues; Steve Eisman explains why he’s shorting Tesla; Walmart discovers that last mile delivery is hard; once-exported U.S. cherries find domestic customers; oil trade routes are threatened by geopolitical risk.

Uber Freight is poised to rise quickly in the fragmented freight brokerage business, but there are some factors that could hinder its growth: limited market penetration of digital apps, the Uber Freight app’s weak intelligence into routes and hours of service, and incumbents’ tech investments.

ShipChain, a South Carolina-based blockchain logistics startup, successfully resolved a dispute with the Securities Division of the South Carolina Attorney General’s office. A cease and desist order entered in May was vacated yesterday.

FreightWaves spoke to GlobalTranz Chairman and CEO Bob Farrell about what made the tech-oriented 3PL attractive to The Jordan Company, the outlook for the current M&A environment, and staying disciplined in a period of “stupid multiples.”

The asset-light expedited LTL carrier posted strong volume and yield growth, and is tacking on intermodal businesses by M&A, but playing catch up with its truckload brokerage.

FreightWaves data scientists are using GPS data to better understand truck movements through the busiest ports in North America—origin and destination, lanes, and the time it takes to get freight into retailers’ DC networks.

Container line alliances are cutting capacity on their transpacific services in anticipation of a major slowdown in the US-China trade relationship due to tariffs. We see downside risk for Union Pacific and BNSF intermodal volumes, as well as JB Hunt.

FreightWaves’ coverage of Distributed 2018, a leading enterprise blockchain conference, continues.

Small carriers enjoy 30% better retention rates than megas; container lines raise rates worldwide; truckload carriers try to capitalize on a historically favorable freight environment; Tesla begs its suppliers for cash back; LNG production is accelerating.

Panelists from Redwood Logistics, Slync, the Trusted IoT Alliance, and Flux Protocol discussed the difficulties of pushing adoption of blockchain-powered IoT devices, despite the technology’s obvious potential.

In a speech attacking the very premises of decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges, BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes laid out what traders really care about, and what makes futures exchanges successful.

Flatbed demand, railroads’ chemical carload volumes, and the price of WTI crude are all bullish signals for an historically hot freight environment to continue through the rest of the year.

Techpertise together with TMW Systems …We’ve known for years that public blockchains needed a second layer for throughput and privacy, but only now are solutions for the largest networks being built out and tested.

CSX hit records on operating ratio while improving train speed and dwell time, but says intermodal still needs a “ton” of work and pricing will reflect CSX’s “superior product.”

The rate of rejected loads coming out of LA inched upward, signaling that the July ‘mellowing’ period may be over. Container rates from China to North America’s West Coast stayed elevated for the second week in a row, and containership idle capacity is at 1%.

Autonomous vehicle execs want you to know self-driving cars are very, very safe; China’s economic growth slows; Elon Musk talks about Tesla’s push to 5,000 Model 3s weekly; American oil bound for China needs to find new markets; DHL orders 14 Boeing 777s.

Theresa May and Donald Trump have patched things up; US warehouse capacity tightest in decades; transpacific container rates moving up quickly; Canadian Pacific and its two unions reach a mutually beneficial deal; Lufthansa Cargo offers spot capacity on its app.

The newest frac sand company, Covia Holdings, was born out of a merger last month. It’s also the largest, with a market cap exceeding $2.2B. We discuss recent shifts in frac sand supply, demand, and sourcing.

Trucking passes all five of Paul Newman’s tests for a successful futures market. That’s why we’re building a financially-settled freight futures contract with Nodal Exchange and DAT.

Tesla wants to build a huge China plant to avoid tariffs; dry bulk carriers find favorable rate environment as countries re-source commodities; Honeywell adds an executive to reconfigure its supply chains; container rates from China to the North America spike as maritime lines take advantage of trade war fears.

Creating private data for separate nodes on a Fabric channel was kind of complicated and cumbersome, but now it’s easy, making meaningful collaboration between businesses a real possibility.

South Korea-based Lotte Global Logistics announced that it has joined the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA).

The rise of e-commerce has pressured warehouses to raise throughput in smaller spaces with fewer people, creating a business opportunity for tech firms promising to find efficiencies and increase productivity.

Most carriers are satisfied with their ELD providers, but they haven’t yet figured out how to turn compliance into a business advantage by operationalizing their data.

Turndowns and trucks in market both deteriorated this week as shippers and carriers enjoyed their Independence Day holiday. US-China tariffs begin today; railroads worried about tariffs’ impact on carloads; air freight’s pilot shortage accelerating drone adoption; unemployment up slightly as US adds 213K jobs.

Fleets ordered 41,800 new trucks in the month of June, making last month the busiest June on record. OEM stock prices rose on the news, and their order backlogs continued to lengthen.

New icebreaking LNG carriers are sailing directly from Russia to China through the Northern Sea Route, creating a faster, cheaper connection between some of the world’s largest gas fields and the world’s largest gas consumers.

Freight markets still hot to close Q2; COSCO/OOCL merger approved by US, China; Tesla hits Model 3 production goal; CSX revives plan for intermodal hub in North Carolina; EU threatens retaliation over auto tariffs.

Sanctions and the Iranian rial’s collapse could remove supply from global oil markets, spiking prices and spurring more production in the United States.

Media outlets are reporting that President Trump has repeatedly told his staff of his desire to pull the United States out of the World Trade Organization, which has removed trade barriers and facilitated free trade for decades.

Audits of Bitcoin transactions make it clear that a significant percentage of transactions are related to illicit activity, and the FBI is on the case. New technologies like cryptocurrency tumblers and coins like Monero are making it harder on law enforcement.

Michael Lewis, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Moneyball, The Blind Side, and The Big Short, has just been confirmed as a keynote speaker for MarketWaves18 at the Opryland Texan Resort & Convention Center this November.

The FMCSA and ATA talk regulations at SMC3; Cummins has to pay tariffs to import its own engines; Canadian National and Canadian Pacific investing in Port of Vancouver; why protectionist rhetoric is roiling the markets; key takeaways from OPEC’s Vienna meeting.

Panelists from BiTA, IBM, Chain.io, and Morris, Manning, and Martin talked about blockchain use cases, the future of the technology, the regulatory landscape, and had different views on cryptocurrencies.

It’s not just e-commerce: internet-connected consumer electronics devices and healthcare equipment are two growth areas for the complex business of reverse logistics.

China wants to consolidate the Asia-North America container trade and drive supply chain efficiencies by operating a container terminal in Long Beach, but national security concerns may scuttle the COSCO-OOCL merger.

Eastbound containers and westbound LNG drove record Panama Canal volumes in May. Last month was the third time the canal has broken tonnage records since the expansion was completed in 2016.

Stifel resumed coverage of major 3PLs on Monday with a flurry of analyst notes: we report J. Bruce Chan’s key findings on XPO Logistics, CH Robinson, and Echo Global.

Turndowns and spot rates are surging out of Atlanta on strong container volumes from Savannah and Georgia onion harvests. Capacity is so tight nationwide that even small movements in demand are having outsize effects on tender rejections and prices.

Donald Broughton says that the oil boom and Trump tax cuts are driving a young industrial expansion cycle; shippers continue to adjust supply chains to minimize transport costs; Google invests $550M in Chinese e-commerce site JD.com; China may put a tariff on US oil imports; Brazil’s trucker strike shattered economic growth outlooks; Asia-North America container rates are softening.

Railroads have raked in profits while service deteriorated, posting record operating ratios as network velocities reached 10 year lows. Pressure from regulators, though, may have finally pushed them to raise capex.

U.S. Xpress goes public; retail sales numbers explode for May; BNSF seeks positive train control delay; Brussels airport goes to blockchain for air cargo management; American LNG exports expected to benefit the entire economy.

Capstone Logistics, which has historically focused on warehouse management services and distribution center efficiency, bought LoadDelivered, the Chicago-based brokerage, and Logistical Labs, its SaaS spinoff.

The summer surge of freight hit the West Coast ports and is working its way through the national network. Now it’s Dallas’ turn to blow up: its outbound tender rejection index is outperforming the national average by 60% over the past three months.

The value of commodity indexes has grown about twice as fast as equities indexes in 2018 so far, prompting a wave of capital expenditure in timber, mining, and oil extraction and keeping demand for truckload miles hot.

Rhode Island begins tolling trucks today; SCOTUS rejects review request by JB Hunt on California case; Rolls-Royce engine problems spread; transportation companies fret over tariffs; Waymo to buy up to 62,000 Chrysler Pacificas.

The lumber markets have not cooled off since we last covered them in March: futures prices are still breaking records because of a Canadian rail capacity crunch, and flatbed rates in the Southeast are climbing right along with them.

Large food shippers are citing rapidly inflating freight costs as headwinds to their earnings, including Smuckers, Kraft Heinz, Tyson, Hershey, and General Mills. We round up the impacts to their businesses here, based on earnings call transcripts.

The Jordan Company has agreed to buy the 3PL GlobalTranz for a reported $400M. GlobalTranz reported $151M in net revenue in 2017.

55 days out from a July 31 deadline, UPS workers represented by the Teamsters have voted to authorize a strike in the event that talks fail.

New truck orders in May have doubled YOY; Navistar takes $50M in profits in Q2; the Permian Basin is out of workers; coal export volumes by rail are better than expected; air freight rates up 22% YOY; housing prices expected to outstrip inflation and wage growth.

Mexico, Canada, and the EU announce retaliatory tariffs; Dow Transports still above 200 day average; the US asks OPEC for a production hike; DHL remains largest air freight forwarder; containership loses 86 boxes in storm off Australia; how China beats US steel tariffs.

Hyundai Merchant Marine wants to grow its fleet to 1M TEU capacity and vault itself into the ranks of the very largest maritime carriers. The South Korean government is financing HMM’s expansion after letting Hanjin collapse in 2016/7.

Schneider National’s Shaleen Devgun joins San Francisco-based venture capital firm 8VC as an advisor. FreightWaves spoke to Devgun and 8VC co-founder and partner Jake Medwell by phone.

The truckload business is booming, but how high will rates go? Hyundai Merchant Marine orders 20 new containerships; China keeps the door open on US trade talks; global equities rise on US jobs report; a pension fund is building a $4.9B railroad in Quebec; manufacturing activity expands.

Brazilian President Temer ended Petrobras’ practice of subsidizing diesel prices, which has sent fuel costs for independent truck drivers spiraling. The owner-ops went on strike 11 days ago, blocking the country’s highways and shutting down many sectors of the economy.

Canadian Pacific conductors and engineers walk off; Brazilian truckers continue their highway shutdown; CMA CGM and Zim blame losses on fuel prices; Savannah hits record TEU volumes in April; Goldman Sachs says the oil rally isn’t over yet.

A magnesium fire in an automotive parts supplier caused F-150 production shutdowns in Dearborn, MI, and Kansas City, MO, earlier this month. The sudden drop-off in demand for freight in those two markets is reflected in our turndown indices.

Drivers find productivity gains after ELD hard enforcement; Canadian Pacific workers’ strike imminent; Brazilian truckers extract over $2B in govt concessions; Maersk rolls out blockchain-based maritime insurance; WaPo interviews truck drivers on the lifestyle.

The telematics revolution is creating a vast data lake, but now the industry has to figure out how to navigate it.

ShipChain, a startup hoping to integrate global shipping logistics on the blockchain, has been hit with a cease-and-desist order from the Securities Division of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office. The order regards the $30M presale of the company’s token, SHIP, which ended in January 2018.

Don Tapscott offered a bold, near-utopian vision of the transformation that blockchain will bring to the global economy and the nature of the corporation itself.