What is "Blockchain Certified" spaghetti?
Andy Baio wondered that when he found a box of pasta that said:
Blockchain Certified
This product has been certified with the ITEM× Blockchain Tool.
Scan the QR-code to browse its production and traceability information.
Andy scanned the code and landed on a clunky website with a cartoonish gold badge. Andy tweeted, "they show off this fancy 'ITEMx Certificate' guaranteeing a 'prime-level of quality' because they 'provide documental proof of the commercial relations insisting with its local suppliers and uploaded this documentation on the public Blockchain.'"
Andy then clicked the "View Transaction" links, which led to a "Cardano transaction with no useful information about the ingredients or their origins. It's a hash of a PDF Certificate document that isn't available."
"And as a kicker," Andy tweeted, "the 'transaction information' on the Cardano Explorer links to non-existent transactions."
The biggest joke of all? What's to stop anyone from printing this QR code on a box of counterfeit pasta? Even if the manufacturer laser-etched QR codes onto each piece of dry pasta, that wouldn't stop a counterfeiter from doing the same.
