Using distributed ledger blockchain technology, United Kingdom-based ticket delivery service BitTicket announced Thursday that it’s joining with TheTicketSellers to fight against ticket scalping and bots in the industry.

In the U.K., where ticket scalpers are known as “touts,” their presence and the proliferation of bots creates problems for the ticketing industry. According to statistics from BitTicket, a product of Citizen Ticket Ltd., secondary markets formed by these outfits bring in approximately $1.38 billion a year by buying hundreds of tickets at a time purely to generate demand and make a profit.

This activity hurts the main industry because it increases prices and makes it harder for consumers to get tickets to the concerts, attractions and entertainment they want to attend.

“BitTicket is the future of ethical event ticketing to benefit the ticket purchaser, event organizer and artist,” said Jonathan Edwards, Gala Festival director. “Using tried and tested blockchain technology it provides a transparent, safe and secure platform that is set to level the event ticketing industry for the good of all involved.”

Phil Shaw-Stewart, co-founder of BitTicket, said that TheTicketSellers was chosen for this partnership because he sees them as one of the U.K.’s most trusted independent ticketing sites. TheTicketSellers has sold more than 2 million tickets to date and manages multiple large-scale independent festivals, including Boomtown Festival, Shambala and Nozstock: The Hidden Valley. Shaw-Stewart said TheTicketSellers will now be the first ticketing platform to implement BitTicket.

BitTicket intends to use its own blockchain technology, based on the Ethereum blockchain, to make it easier to track and extinguish these mass buys of tickets. With BitTicket’s blockchain, plus a wallet feature used to store tickets for customers, every sale from any provider can be tracked by promoters from purchase to use.

The platform can also track aftermarket transfers, such as trading tickets between friends. The wallet will also allow promoters and venues to send messages to ticket holders, the event’s actual attendees and not just the original purchasers.

By allowing only one identity per person, the company hopes to be able to stop scalpers, bots and ticket fraud. This will help keep ticket prices down and reduce the chances of customers purchasing tickets and later discovering they have been defrauded. Wallet holders will prove their own identities by submitting a video of themselves along with a form of identification.

BitTicket also intends to enable smart contracts, a capability of blockchain systems to create programmable agreements between parties, to create clear arrangements between sellers and buyers.

In the U.K., it is illegal to buy and resell tickets for more than 10 percent of their face value – leading to a potential prison sentence and heavy fines — but bot problems still persist in these industries.

Other startups trying to revolutionize the ticketing industry include Blocktix, a token-based event ticket system; California-based Upgraded Inc., launched in 2016 for digital ticket sales and tracking; and Irish startup Evopass (formerly TicketChain), winner of the Deloitte blockchain hackathon in Dublin in 2016.

Blockchain technology has also been put to the test by Russia’s S7 Airlines, in conjunction with Alfa-Bank, using the Ethereum blockchain to record and track ticket sales. The idea would be to use the technology to simplify payments and speed up payment settlement times between airlines and agents.

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