The $700B US trucking industry is the backbone of American commerce with 80% of all cargo transported overland by trucks, yet it is plagued with inefficiency and ultimately controlled by a bloated intermediary brokerage system whose incentives are not aligned with the true stakeholders. <br /> <br /> Imagine forming a blockchain platform bringing together shippers, carriers, truckers and brokers where they can place and track orders, assess performance records, compare pricing and extend credit. Add in a set of decentralized applications (DApps) linking up these stakeholders--and a new digital token speeding their transactions--and you could cut billions of dollars in inefficiencies from the $700 billion-dollar-a-year trucking industry.<br /> <br /> That is the vision of Fr8 Network, a newly formed upstart that aims to take the pain out of shipping by targeting, in particular, the $66 billion a year in fees exacted by some 16,000 middleman brokerages. Some key points:<br /> · Potential savings are huge. Trucks travel an astounding 29.6 billion miles every year only partially loaded or entirely empty--a waste of capacity even as businesses struggle with a shortage of drivers.<br /> · Cut that unused capacity in half, and we could save $30 billion a year in fuel costs and reduce carbon emissions from trucks by 100 million tons per year, 20% of their total carbon output.<br /> · By matching customers to and carriers online, the industry could sidestep broker fees that pose up to 20% of the cost of shipping goods; cut fees in half and the industry saves some $30 billion.