The President of the United States, on April 2, unveiled the “Reciprocal Tariffs” package, something that is not only bound to adversely impact Washington’s allies and enemies alike, but, in the words of experts, will lead to a global growth slowdown (or, to make things worse, a potential recession). The stock markets across the world are bleeding, while countries and businesses scramble to analyse how these tariffs will affect their export prospects.
In this scenario, today’s episode of International Finance’s “Start-up of the Week” will be special, as we will talk about a Web3 venture that now claims to be able to track tariffs automatically on goods coming into and out of the USA using its blockchain platform. The venture, named “Watr,” is already validating commodities for large mining companies and auto manufacturers.
Potential Game-Changer In The Making?
Created by former Shell, BP, and JP Morgan executives, the company is headed by Maryam Ayati, who led global origination and investment at Shell Trading. As per a TechCrunch report, Watr’s investors belong to a syndicate of “thus-far unnamed crypto VCs” and “commodity executives.”
While stating that, through Watr, a commodity can be pre-checked for tariffs before a transaction takes place, Ayati stated, “Some non-Western governments we’ve spoken to say that Western-country commodities traders sometimes claim that a commodity they’ve bought will be going to, for example, Europe, but then it’s sent to, for example, an Asian market. And they make a lot more money on that because they don’t give the correct cut to the original commodity owners. With our system, the minute tariffs are due, even before money changes hands, the commodity can be checked for whether a tariff is due or not.”
While there are chances that the start-up’s solution can be used to ensure strict implementation of American tariffs, the same tool can also be used to speed up global trade (and the USD 20 trillion worth of global commodities industry) hit by any tariff-induced slowdowns. Watr’s platform tracks commodities using blockchain-based tools, ranging from decentralised IDs for institutions to digital fingerprints for raw materials.
Watr’s journey started in 2022 with a “nutrition label” to track the provenance of a commodity in terms of regulations, such as CO2 emissions or other ESG considerations. Now, in 2025, the venture is switching to domains like sanctions and tariffs, using its blockchain platform to test the provenance of commodities to ensure its clients aren’t inadvertently overstepping any regulatory hurdles before a trade is completed.
Watr recently migrated to the Avalanche blockchain network. The latter, developed by Ava Labs, allows companies like Watr to create so-called “sovereign chains” — tailored to specific industry needs, in this case, the world of commodities. It’s already used by JP Morgan, Citibank, and FEMA.
How Watr Works
Watr believes that the future of commodities isn’t built by outsiders—it’s built by those who know how these markets run, how capital flows, and where innovation is most useful.
“Watr is the first open blockchain ecosystem designed for commodity markets, by those who have built, traded, and financed them at scale. Neo Holdings, creator of Watr and its ecosystem developer, is led by veterans of energy, commodities, startups, and blockchain,” the start-up added.
Neo Holdings itself works on the principle of making industry expertise meet decentralised innovation, curating and commercialising new digital technology and market ventures across the commodities industry in the process.
Neo is not just building products for Watr; it’s curating an ecosystem where liquidity, trade, and compliance meet digital-first infrastructure. Watr has become a public blockchain, open for entrepreneurs, developers, and institutions to build the next generation of commodity markets.
Watr has built and scaled blockchain-based market infrastructure, from trade finance platforms to tokenized assets, bringing industry leaders, traders, investors, and entrepreneurs on the same platform to “solve real problems for real users.” The start-up designs its solutions with interoperability, scale, and regulatory compliance in mind, ensuring real-world adoption and growth.
Watr’s decentralised market infrastructure works on two key mechanisms. The first is “Watr ID,” which is a sort of “Identity Layer,” containing verifiable, self-sovereign digital identities for businesses, individuals (traders, commodity professionals, investors, and developers), and assets, enabling trusted commodity trade, reducing counterparty risk, and streamlining financing with reusable, compliant identity credentials.
Next is “WatrMrk,” which provides digital provenance for commodities—ensuring assets are tracked, verified, and programmable, thereby creating a tamper-proof, on-chain record of asset origin, attributes, and transaction origin, critical for risk assessment, sustainable trade, and price discovery.
Partnering with Watr helps commodity sector players set the terms for new contracts, risk models, and execution structures that will define “tomorrow’s market.” Also, they can fund and collaborate with disruptors who can redefine the commodity sector’s operations through their innovations.
Watr also helps its clients unlock financing channels, such as programmable and real-world on-chain risk models. Through this, entrepreneurs, fintechs, and market pioneers can quickly develop new financial instruments, risk models, and digital trading applications.
At the beginning of our article, we stated Watr’s ability to track tariffs automatically on goods coming into and out of the USA using its blockchain platform, apart from validating commodities for large mining companies and auto manufacturers.
At the centre of these claims, we have a compliance layer, which is a portable, immutable KYC credential ensuring seamless regulatory compliance across platforms and ecosystems. To back it up, Watr has also introduced NeoReserves, a capital layer that provides on-chain liquidity pools and new trade financing models for commodities.
We also have VentureStream, a launchpad and innovation hub for startups building commodity-tech solutions, fostering a vibrant developer ecosystem, and connecting entrepreneurs with legacy market participants. Together, all these components form the building blocks of a programmable commodities economy, ensuring transparency, compliance, trust, reputation, smooth capital flow, and growth and adoption.
A-Z About Watr’s Migration To Avalanche Blockchain Network
Watr, to redefine the USD 20 trillion global commodities industry, has migrated to an Avalanche L1. This move will bring one of the world’s most critical sectors—spanning metals, minerals, food, and fuel—on-chain, thereby leveraging Avalanche’s infrastructure to unlock composability and capital efficiency at scale.
Avalanche’s modular architecture will empower Watr to launch purpose-built blockchains tailored to individual commodities, counterparties, and compliance requirements—without sacrificing speed or interoperability. Trusted by major institutions like JPMorgan, Citi, and FEMA, Avalanche provides the institutional-grade performance required to scale real-world asset applications.
Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building the next generation of decentralised applications (dApps). With its unique blend of speed, flexibility, and scalability, the entity has become the preferred choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.