The $20 Trillion Problem: How Blockchain is Rewiring Global Trade Finance

Aliya Grig is the Founder of Ocean, a groundbreaking blockchain infrastructure platform that modernizes cross‑border trade finance. She is on a mission to close the $20 trillion global trade finance gap by replacing the archaic, paper‑based system of letters of credit, bills of lading, and factoring with programmable, transparent, and automated smart contracts. Her vision is a world where any small or medium enterprise (SME), anywhere, can access fair and instant trade financing against verifiable on‑chain collateral.

With a background in international trade law, supply chain logistics, and distributed systems, Aliya has witnessed firsthand the friction that kills trillions in economic potential — days of settlement, fraud, and the exclusion of promising businesses from global markets. Ocean’s infrastructure digitizes trade documents as NFTs, escrows payments in stablecoins, and uses oracles to track shipments in real‑time, triggering instant settlement upon delivery. The platform also tokenizes trade finance assets, allowing institutional investors to fund invoices and receivables with full transparency and risk scoring. Aliya is a passionate advocate for trade as a force for inclusive globalization. At UN Blockchain Week she outlines how decentralized trade finance can be the killer application that finally brings blockchain to the heart of the global economy.