Hyperledger Foundation Adds Citi and Brazilian Development Bank as New Members; Launches Financial Services Working Group to Support Rapid Industry Adoption of Hyperledger Besu

SAN FRANCISCO (March 19, 2024) – Today, Hyperledger Foundation, the open, global ecosystem for enterprise-grade blockchain technologies, announced Citi and the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) as new members. Additionally, the foundation unveiled a new Hyperledger Besu Financial Services Working Group, chaired by DTCC, that will support operationalizing the open source Ethereum client for enterprise end user applications.

Hyperledger Besu, a Java-based client with an extractable EVM implementation that serves both public and private permissioned networks use cases, is emerging as critical infrastructure for next generation financial services. A recent analysis by Blockdaemon of the technology powering the global tokenization ecosystem found that Hyperledger Besu was the most frequently mentioned protocol in a survey of 92 different firms, ranging from bank asset managers to clearing houses. More than 40% of the surveyed firms cited Hyperledger Besu as their protocol. 

The Hyperledger Besu Financial Service Working Group is an industry-wide collaboration where enterprise users and code contributors to Hyperledger Besu can actively define new features and enhancements that strengthen the alignment between organizations adopting the technology and the development process. In addition to DTCC, which is chairing the group, founding members include Accenture, Banco Central do Brasil, Consensys, Citi, Japan Securities Clearing Corporation (JSCC), Kaleido, LACNET, Mastercard, Santander, Visa, Web3 Labs, and others.

“The number of enterprise users of Hyperledger Besu in the digital assets space is rapidly increasing, underscoring the need for establishing a collaboration space for the financial services industry to align on development priorities,” said Carlos Vivas, Sr Principal Engineer and Director at DTCC and chair of the Hyperledger Besu Financial Services Working Group. “DTCC is proud to be leading this initiative, in collaboration with the Hyperledger Foundation and the founding members of the working group, to support the industry and help shape the future of financial markets.”

In another signal of the growing footprint of Hyperledger technology in the enterprise Ethereum ecosystem, the foundation recently approved a new project, Hyperledger Web3j, the Java and Android integration library for Ethereum. Contributed by Web3 Labs, this is a well-established  open source project with an active community working to provide plumbing for enterprise developers to work with Ethereum-compatible blockchains. Additionally, Linux Foundation Training is rolling out a new Hyperledger Besu Certification that will allow candidates to demonstrate their understanding of the fundamentals of the Besu, including designing production deployments. This new certification will create a pathway for Hyperledger Certified Service Providers (HCSPs) to support Besu deployments as well.

“The financial services market is quickly coalescing around Hyperledger Besu as an institutional-grade Ethereum client that supports both public and private permissioned networks,” said Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director, Hyperledger Foundation, and General Manager, Blockchain and Identity, at the Linux Foundation. “The launch of a financial services-focused working group to accelerate development of critical features underscores the value of Hyperledger Foundation’s open, community-driven development. Our newest members are investing in that model, enabling us to continue to grow our ecosystem and support the training and market buildings that will drive success for all.”

Helping to further adoption of Hyperledger technology, the recent release of Hyperledger Bevel 1.0 introduces new features focused on accelerating the deployment of blockchain networks, ensuring their scalability and security and inherently making them production ready. One of the newly supported platforms is Hyperledger Besu.

New Members

General members support Hyperledger Foundation’s work in fostering the development and deployment of enterprise-grade, industry-specific applications, services and solutions built on open source enterprise blockchain and related technologies. Citi is joining the general member community.

“We are excited to have joined the Hyperledger Foundation as we are committed to constantly being at the forefront of innovating blockchain and distributed ledger technology,” said Biser Dimitrov, Global Head, Distributed Ledger Technology Center of Excellence at Citi. “We're not just looking to the future; we're shaping it, aiming for the next generation of financial solutions to be built on a foundation of trust, safety, soundness, and technological innovation powered by the global community. We look forward to being a part of this cutting-edge community that shares our vision for revolutionizing how the world interacts with finance.”

To ensure global contributions and participation from the blockchain community, pre-approved non-profits, open source projects and government entities can join Hyperledger Foundation at no cost as associate members. BNDES is joining the ranks of Hyperledger Foundation associate members.

About Hyperledger Foundation

Hyperledger Foundation was founded in 2015 to bring transparency and efficiency to the enterprise market by fostering a thriving ecosystem around open source blockchain software technologies. As a project of the Linux Foundation, Hyperledger Foundation coordinates a community of member and non member organizations, individual contributors and software developers building enterprise-grade platforms, libraries, tools and solutions for multi-party systems using blockchain, distributed ledger, and related technologies. Organizations join Hyperledger Foundation to demonstrate technical leadership, collaborate and network with others, and raise awareness around their efforts in the enterprise blockchain community. Members include industry-leading organizations in finance, banking, healthcare, supply chains, manufacturing, technology and beyond. All Hyperledger code is built publicly and available under the Apache license. To learn more, visit: www.hyperledger.org.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 2,950 members. The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation’s projects, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, Hyperledger Foundation, RISC-V, and more, are critical to the world’s infrastructure. The Linux Foundation’s methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org.