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IN THE BUSINESS OF
BETTER DECISIONS
BUNKER TRADING IS A PEOPLE'S BUSINESS.
CONNECT TO DEALMAKERS AND NEGOTIATE SMARTER WITH AI INSIGHTS.
IN THE BUSINESS OF
BETTER DECISIONS
BUNKER TRADING IS A PEOPLE'S BUSINESS.
CONNECT TO DEALMAKERS AND NEGOTIATE SMARTER WITH AI INSIGHTS.
TOWARDS A DECENTRALIZED, NETWORK-TRADING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PHISICAL COMMODITY MARKETS
Abstract
Physical commodity trading is not just about matching orders — it’s about trust, cooperation, and the signals that each brand relays to the market. This makes physical trading fundamentally different from exchange-based financial markets.
Digital marketplaces have failed to capture this reality. Efforts to “platformize” OTC commodities — through permissioned blockchains, B2B marketplaces, or enterprise SaaS — have resulted in a proliferation of digital islands: vertically focused, narrow in scope, and lacking the interoperability required for a truly horizontal, industry-wide solution.
At the same time, much of the free trade workflow now unfolds online. It is a logistics-heavy and capital-intensive activity, yet the digital infrastructure that underpins these interactions remains extractive to varying degrees — precisely because we use it “for free”. It appears free, but it isn’t. What’s needed is not another exchange or digital marketplace, but a decentralized communication network, purpose-built for commodity trading workflows — one that restores privacy, enables effective risk appraisal, and gives users full control over their data without sacrificing the advantages of generative AI.
FREE TRADE - A COUNTERPARTY-SEARCH PROCESS
Trading physical commodities involves extracting resources from the ground, transporting them across the globe, and transforming them into essential raw materials: an intensely logistical endeavour that differs from the abstractions of financial markets and investments.
This activity has always relied on a subtle interplay between human judgment, trust, and intuition. Successful transactions require more than just data and analytics—they demand an understanding of human behaviour and the ability to manage calculated risks.
The underlying transactions are negotiated over the counter (OTC), as an offline counterparty-search process based on relationships, reputation, and a bit of well-earned scepticism. This ability to choose counterparties effectively brings players together. In this way, free trade ensures the efficient transmission of the energy and raw materials that underpin global prosperity.
NETWORK-TRADING
OTC markets have never really been a “place”. Unlike stock exchanges or brokerage apps, they lack a physical or centralized digital venue.
This collective effort thrives without a central coordinator. Instead, a networked ecosystem of agents built on enduring relationships, serves as a mechanism for trust, price discovery, and addressing credit market gaps.
Professionals in these networks historically cooperated, competed and transacted via phone and telex first, and now use email and instant messaging - all horizontal technologies that preserve and scale the decentralized nature of these markets.
In the oil industry, for example, the vertical disintegration of oil majors’ down-stream processes that started in the 1970s, opened the door to spot trading that gradually attracted an increasing number of independent traders, brokers and specialised operators.
Here, the counterparty-search and price discovery process takes place mainly via reverse-auctions - an iterative process that is part negotiation and part auction.
Marine Fuel reverse-auctions, in particular, involve a buying organization and pre-qualified physical suppliers who compete by submitting successively lower priced bids. In this process:
NETWORK TRADING VS. MARKETPLACE TRADING - WHY OTC MARKETS RESIST DIGITALIZATION
In this context, software-based tools like digital marketplaces have long been of interest. The theoretical argument is that, for goods like physical commodities, digital marketplaces reduce search costs and boost transactional efficiency by aggregating buyer and seller information publicly, promoting price transparency and potentially leading to deflationary outcomes.
While this thesis remains debated, several key factors explain why transitioning from network trading to digital marketplaces is not straightforward.
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE - MARKETS AS COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
OTC reverse-auctions are an unstructured decision-making process based on a granular negotiation workflow that static dashboards of digital marketplaces cannot capture.
Seasoned dealmakers manoeuvre intuition, trust and calculated risks in a process where:
The professionals on both sides of this equation are not easily interchangeable, and each brings unique perspectives, expertise, and relationships to the transaction.
The industry acknowledges this as a core tenet - people matter.
If we zoom out and recognize this as an expression of human interaction through communication, two key aspects emerge:
1) Asymmetry of information is a fundamental feature of human interaction. When arbitrage opportunities drive behaviour, everyone has their "secret sauce” - a legitimate information edge arising from superior effort, expertise or deeper involvement in the transaction's underlying processes.
Austrian economics calls this "Good Asymmetry", as it is the source of entrepreneurial opportunity which makes a deal possible in the first place.
Eliminating it altogether wouldn’t create a fairer system; it would just flatten the playing field and remove the entrepreneurial incentive to take risks to meet demand.
This is a good example of when transparency backfires and is the main reason why, in a B2B environment, digital marketplaces often struggle to gain traction on the supply side.
It also provides evidence of the limitations of the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, which rests on the assumption of rational, well-informed agents and implies the absence of opportunities for systematic superior gains, hence limited trading activity.
2) OTC markets can be viewed as communication networks where multiple agents—traders, brokers, and stakeholders—operate within a complex system, acting as senders and receivers, broadcasting signals via the available communication channels.
Decision-makers use signals to mitigate information asymmetries especially when the seller has full insider information about the goods or services, while the other, typically the buyer, lacks complete information to assess in advance the reliability of supplier service – introducing adverse selection risks.
Austrian economics calls "Bad Asymmetry" the case where bad actors exploit the existence of verification costs, leveraging the counterpart’s limited ability to cross-reference claims, to omit, misinform, or defraud counterparties, leading to market failures.
For example, the Authorized Push Payment (APP) Fraud—a form of social engineering—has surged, accounting for ~50% of fraud losses in the UK and US (2023–2024). These include invoice fraud and impersonation scams. The cost is not just financial; it includes brand reputation damage.
Account Verification Services and Confirmation of Payee (CoP) are early initiatives to combat this—now a hot topic in the trade finance industry.
To mitigate the undesirable costs of information asymmetry, buyers seek signals to assess supplier behaviour and prefer reliable partners, often paying premiums for consistency.
A supplier’s network structure and stability, for example, can serve as a signal. Instability may signal unreliable conduct from a buyer’s perspective - stability in relationships has value.
For all these reasons, the digital marketplace model struggles to adapt to the granular, logistics-heavy workflow of commodity markets.
SOLUTIONS LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM
Also, back in 2016, the “blockchain revolution” seemed destined for success, promising to benefit a sector in need of solutions.
Yet, that promise remains to be fulfilled: IBM and Maersk's TradeLens was discontinued in late 2022, the Marco Polo Payment Commitment was shelved and the WeTrade platform was abandoned.
While some fintech, may have addressed certain pain points (e.g. digitizing bills of lading), they remain vertically focused, limited in scope, and lack the interoperability needed for a horizontal, industry-wide solution.
The lack of standards for the interoperability of "digital islands" is another old problem and cannot be solved by merely inviting all parties to join one platform, because diverging incentives and privacy concerns among heterogeneous agents block adoption of centralized solutions.
THE REAL PROBLEM LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION
As we advance into the digital era, resilient information systems are critical for professionals to collaborate online around complex services and build enduring relationships in an environment that is increasingly subjected to various interferences:
Political - For decades, the decentralized, fragmented nature of OTC markets has been framed as a “challenge” due to inherent imperfections, sometimes worsened by bad actors. Yet, historical attempts to centralize the OTC activity, like France’s 1979 oil bourse proposal, failed partly because existing telecom efficiencies – telex, fax and phone - preserved and scaled the decentralized essence of oil spot trading.
Technological - the concentration of tools like email, instant messaging and social media in the hands of few tech giants creates data silos and single points of failure, undermining the privacy and resilience of the information systems that we use “for free” daily.
For example, users log into email or social media platforms with IDs and passwords, but moving content elsewhere is challenging because big-tech companies, not users, control the data and identity authentication.
Legal - The process of moving physical commodities and their associated rights across borders requires navigating diverse global jurisdictions.
In particular, the concept of "holder", "possession" and "delivery" of a trade document has special significance and is historically tied to paper documentation as a non-fungible medium.
The underlying legal framework evolves slowly for a good reason, as the industry operates across diverse commercial, political and economic environments.
Hence legal and regulatory frameworks often lag behind technological advancements.
ENABLING STRONGER, MORE RESILIENT NETWORKS
What has been discussed so far highlights the compelling need for a decentralized network-trading infrastructure for physical commodity markets — one that is open, censorship-resistant, and designed for cross-border collaboration around complex workflows, while retaining their privacy and competitive edge.
Over the past decade, “decentralization” has too often been equated with blockchain, but the two are not synonymous.
While blockchain introduced valuable ideas about distributed consensus, decentralization is broader and about resilience through redundancy, control over one’s own data, and the ability to operate without centralized points of failure.
INTRODUCING “REVERT” – A DECENTRALIZED COMMUNICATION LAYER (WITHOUT BLOCKCHAIN)
Revert is the decision-support and communication platform for the commodity trading community, enhancing network trading and informed decision-making while preserving the relational nature of negotiations.
Our guiding principle is simple: "Commodity Trading is a People’s Business."
Our mission is to provide the infrastructure that makes it easier for traders, brokers, and stakeholders to communicate, transact and build relationships privately.
This requires fierce independence and strong commitment to open and decentralized solutions.
Confidentiality and Dependability at the Core
The Commodity Trading community is built on relationships that span across industries, geographies, and cultures.
We believe that trust is the most valuable commodity in any trade and Revert is designed to enhance the relational fabric of those trades.
Guardrails Against Dehumanization
Revert is built around convenience and user experience: we deliver technology that literally speaks your language and offers insights enhancing the ability to make informed decisions, thanks to generative AI.
But — We are acutely aware of the dangers that technology can pose to human autonomy, privacy, and, in some cases, well-being.
Our commitment is to use technology to “give-back” to our users their data and empower our users, not replacing them: by retaining ownership and control over their data our users maintain independence and freedom from platform lock-in.
Our core values
We believe:
Choice, the Problem is Choice
Some technology holds greater potential to uplift humanity than others. Some technology, if thoughtfully advanced, could counteract the downsides of less beneficial ones. It’s up to us to deliberately steer progress toward these positive paths, as the pursuit of profit alone may not naturally lead us there.