Factom, a blockchain recordkeeping service, confirms that its land title project with Honduran authorities is in limbo. 

In its new blog post, Factom CEO Peter Kirby finally commented on the situation concerning the company’s partnership with the government of Honduras.

The initial information about the existing partnership between Factom and Honduras came in May from Reuteurs. Allegedly Honduras wanted to secure land title records using blockchain technology. In August Kirby told that nothing more than the proof-of-concept concerning land title records for La Ceiba (the fourth largest city in Honduras) existed. However, the Honduran government never publicly commented even on the existence of this preliminary agreement. Thus, some people doubted whether this “partnership” took place at all, suggesting that Factom on purpose let the rumours circulate in order to gain publicity.

Later Factom presented documents proving the existence of a kind of agreement between the parties – emails with Honduran officials and a non-binding letter of intent designed to set up a joint venture between the two sides. However in its recent public comment Kirby qualified the previously announced proof-of-concept to "stall" and provided some information about the perspectives of the project: “We were hoping to have a working prototype deployed by the end of the year, but as 2015 comes to a close, we’ll all have to wait another year to deploy a blockchain backed land title system that is both tamper-proof and transparent.”

Anna Lavinskaya