Gabriele Columbro, FINOS; Karen Ottoni, Hyperledger Foundation; and Jennifer Lassiter, The Digital Dollar Project, Author at Hyperledger Foundation

May 23

Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), Hyperledger Foundation, and The Digital Dollar Project Team Up to Drive Open Development and Collaboration for CBDCs

By Gabriele Columbro, FINOS; Karen Ottoni, Hyperledger Foundation; and Jennifer Lassiter, The Digital Dollar Project Blog, Finance

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) has the power to transform economies — connecting people, governments, businesses, and organizations locally and globally through technology that could not have been imagined even 20 years ago, and with more advances on the way.

Experimentation is central to answering any question, especially one with as many stakeholders, variables, and “unknowns” as CBDCs. Without open source development and collaboration between stakeholders, each will have to invest significant resources to build code independently and will have no way to avoid duplicating efforts or mistakes.

To achieve success, we must experiment, question, interrogate, and evaluate without fear of failure. We must share information openly and freely across borders, industries, and institutions to create a rich dataset that drives innovation and decision-making.

That’s why we are thrilled to announce that Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS), Hyperledger Foundation and The Digital Dollar Project (DDP) are joining forces to create an open community dedicated to experimentation, information sharing, and discussion around CBDCs, ensuring that central banks that decide to embark upon researching or deploying CBDCs are doing so with the best available secure technology.

Each organization’s unique community will contribute to building a neutral place to collaborate, use, share, and build technologies that advance the exploration of CBDCs. Our aim is to bring together a global forum of practitioners and stakeholders to engage in open collaboration and development and to forge private-public partnerships for experimenting, sharing knowledge, and working together on open standards and research.

We are just getting started and are excited to share more in the weeks ahead. To learn more and to get involved, visit https://project.linuxfoundation.org/open-digital-currency.

May 19

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Hyperledger Foundation Announces Development Milestones for Three Projects; Plans for Hyperledger Global Forum

By Hyperledger Announcements

Will Host Global Community, Spotlight Technology and Adoption Advancements and Foster New Development at September Event in Dublin, Ireland

SAN FRANCISCO (May 19, 2022) – Hyperledger Foundation, the open, global ecosystem for enterprise blockchain technologies, today announced development milestones for three of its projects, including the release of a long term support (LTS) preview version of Hyperledger Iroha 2. Additionally, Hyperledger Foundation, which is hosted at the Linux Foundation, released details for this year’s Hyperledger Global Forum (HGF), the largest annual gathering of the global Hyperledger community.

Hyperledger Foundation currently hosts 14 active projects, including six graduated and eight incubating ones. They include five distributed ledgers, which are all graduated projects, as well as five tools and three libraries. Hyperledger Iroha, a graduated distributed ledger, is marching towards a full V2 release. The community has been introducing a steady stream of releases for the new version and, now, is releasing a LTS preview version to ramp up adoption. Hyperledger Cactus, and Hyperledger FireFly, both incubating tools, each recently launched their V1.0 releases as well.

The fast growing and maturing Hyperledger project landscape will be a main focus of Hyperledger Global Forum 2022, which will take place September 12-13 in Dublin, Ireland, at Convention Centre Dublin. HGF will have dual technology and business tracks and workshops where more than 100 speakers will be sharing the latest on developments from Hyperledger projects, labs, working groups and special interest groups and deployments as well as academic research, emerging business and use cases ranging from Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to the climate, supply chains to security, and digital identities to NFTs. David Treat, Senior Managing Director, Global Metaverse Continuum Business Group & Blockchain Lead at Accenture, will also take the stage of HGF to share his vision for the community and technology as the new chair of the Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board.

“Each year, Hyperledger Global Forum is the single best opportunity to take stock of the evolution of the open-source enterprise blockchain market,” said newly elected Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board Chair David Treat, senior managing director, Global Metaverse Continuum Business Group & Blockchain Lead at Accenture. “The conversations and content this year will reflect the exponential pace of innovation and adoption occurring throughout the Hyperledger ecosystem. We have an amazing opportunity to scale Hyperledger’s impact as our community’s capabilities are the foundation of the emerging ‘Internet of Ownership’ Metaverse innovation wave.”

New releases

Hyperledger Cactus 1.0 – Hyperledger Cactus is a blockchain integration tool designed to allow users to securely integrate different blockchains. With this 1.0 release, Cactus delivers “Ledger Connectors” for nine blockchain platforms (including all of the graduated DLTs from Hyperledger) using multiple programming languages.Cactus is a pluggable enterprise-grade framework for transacting multiple blockchains that aims to provide a decentralized, adaptable and secure integration between blockchains and various platforms. It code is composed of three types of parts:

“Cactus Servers” that provide abstracted APIs that can be uniformly called independent of each blockchain SDK’s format, and APIs that can use each blockchain SDK wrapped with the typescript-axios API format using Cactus API Server.
“Business Logic Plugins” that coordinate cross-blockchain business logic applications.
“Ledger Connectors” that facilitate connections to various blockchains

The Hyperledger Cactus 1.0 release also includes Business Logic Plugin samples, Keychain Plugins (a set of plugins for storing sensitive information in storage engines outside of Cactus) and Support Libraries.

Hyperledger FireFly 1.0 – Hyperledger FireFly 1.0, a SuperNode for Enterprise Web3 Applications, combines a number of technical and market milestones. At its core, it offers a composable Web3 stack to help speed up decentralized application (dApp) development by a factor of 10x-100x, making it the first open-source SuperNode for enterprises to build and scale secure Web3 applications.

The Hyperledger FireFly SuperNode provides a new type of decentralized orchestration layer between companies’ existing systems and Web3. It enables the shift of value in open network systems and reduces the reliance on proprietary technology or custom-built code. It solves for the layers of complexity that sit between the low level blockchain and high level business processes and user interfaces, letting developers focus on building business logic instead of infrastructure.

Hyperledger FireFly is already in production deployments with a number of leading blockchain consortia today, including RiskStream Collaborative in the insurance industry, Synaptic Health Alliance in healthcare, TradeGo in commodity trade finance, and the international conglomerate CP Group.*

Hyperledger Iroha 2.0 LTS preview release – Hyperledger Iroha 2 is designed as a modular system with the flexibility to be deployed across a range of uses, from the simple to the complex. For example, it can be used as a toll-free intermediate ledger in a Hyperledger Cactus consortium or as a standalone ledger with transaction fees. It can just as easily connect to parity Substrate networks and provide Byzantine fault-tolerant governance.

The second iteration of Hyperledger Iroha is close to being production-ready, but far from feature complete. The current preview release will serve as an LTS version, supported for the following six months, to allow developers to start using Iroha 2 to design in their products and get a preview of some of the innovative functions that are coming soon.

“This wave of milestones is a reflection of the high level of development momentum across the Hyperledger community as well as the increasing level of maturity of the enterprise blockchain market,” said Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director, Hyperledger Foundation, and General Manager Blockchain, Healthcare and Identity at the Linux Foundation. “The core value of enterprise blockchain has been well proven across industries, and our global and growing community is now building a rich ecosystem that will drive the next wave of interconnected, interoperable solutions. These developments are just a preview of the energy and ideas that will be the centerpiece of Hyperledger Global Forum.”

About Hyperledger Global Forum

Hyperledger Global Forum is the biggest annual gathering of the global Hyperledger community. It is a unique opportunity for contributors, members, service providers and enterprise end users from around the world to meet, align, plan and hack together in person. The event is open to any and all who are involved or interested in using, developing or learning more about Hyperledger’s open source enterprise blockchain technologies. Attendees will hear directly from those who are actively developing and deploying Hyperledger technologies as well as technology and business leaders who are shaping the future of enterprise blockchain. They will also have the chance to talk directly with Hyperledger project maintainers and the Technical Steering Committee, collaborate with other organizations on ideas that will directly impact the future of Hyperledger Foundation, and promote their work among the communities.

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: https://www.hyperledger.org/.

About the Linux Foundation

Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation and its projects are supported by more than 1,800 members and is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. 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.

*Paragraph added May 20, 2022.

May 19

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New Long-Term Support Version of Hyperledger Iroha Creates On-Ramp for v2 Adoption

By Hyperledger Iroha Team Blog, Hyperledger Iroha

In 2016, a team at SORAMITSU envisioned a universal blockchain framework. They began work on Iroha with the aim of creating a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform that would be user-friendly, yet robust enough to work with various use cases in any industry, while providing complete client libraries, simple architecture, and easy-to-comprehend entities. In short, Iroha is both a framework and a poem that became a Japanese syllabary, ordered and beautiful.

In the six years that have passed, Iroha was contributed to the Hyperledger Foundation, and the project has evolved immensely. When Hyperledger Iroha v1 was released, it was with the goal of being a flexible private blockchain ledger and to help flatten the DLT learning curve. Hyperledger Iroha v1 was to be like digital epoxy, moldable into whatever was needed, but once solidified — rock solid and reliable. The project was a resounding success, achieving what was originally planned and far beyond.

Hyperledger Iroha v1, which graduated as a project in 2019, is both a marvel of performance, speed, and reliability; as well as a platform for mentorship and learning. To this day, Iroha v1 and its SDKs are known as some of the cleanest code bases.

Introducing Hyperledger Iroha V2

The world of technology flows extremely fast, and by the time everybody talks about an idea, it’s already too late to implement it. “In our world, who can stay gold forever?” as the second line of the Iroha poem states. The Hyperledger Iroha community has taken a forward-looking stance with the successor to Iroha v1. We anticipate what the world of tomorrow will need in a blockchain ledger. We intend to be the “the great mountain of Uwi,” of which the third line of the same poem speaks, accumulating the Karma of human beings and moving beyond it.

We thus proudly present to you a sneak peek at Hyperledger Iroha v2.

Hyperledger Iroha 2’s main goal is to embody the ideal of Kaizen: eliminate the excessive, preserve the unambiguously good. Iroha 2 is designed as a modular system that’s easy to reason about. You can deploy it as a toll-free intermediate ledger in a Hyperledger Cactus consortium, or you can use it as a standalone ledger with transaction fees. It can just as easily connect to parity Substrate networks and provide Byzantine fault-tolerant governance. But Iroha doesn’t need to be cumbersome. It only asks you questions when no reasonable default can be assumed. It can be as simple and as complex as you choose to make it.

The second iteration of Hyperledger Iroha is close to being production-ready, but far from feature complete. It comes with its own bespoke execution model that can be optimized for parallel execution, something which few, if any, ledgers currently allow. Both elastic-supply currencies as well as NFTs are supported, and accounts are allowed to be identified both as a familiar name@domain as well as a verbose but cryptic SS58 address.

Another goal of Hyperledger Iroha 2 is to become the blockchain that would be more than capable of working with a greater variety of use cases while still being lightweight and easy to use. Iroha 2 has been developed in Rust, and will allow blockchain developers to connect to public networks, to Substrate networks; to collect or not collect transaction fees; to choose what assets to mint and how to use them.

In short, with Hyperledger Iroha 2 it is possible to build the type of network that would work best for you: be it a simplistic network that will only allow to create and transfer simple assets, or an elaborate system with reputation, connection to public networks, offline transactions, and complex assets.

Join the Hyperledger Iroha v2 Community

You can try out Hyperledger Iroha 2 right now, with the help of our Tutorial, which is still a work in progress, but already shows you many features of Iroha 2; such as the creation of basic systems, Iroha Special Instruction or WASM events, as well as usage of Iroha through different languages such as Java, Rust, JavaScript, Python 3 or simply through a CLI.

Now Hyperledger Iroha 2 is hitting a major milestone. We are releasing the 5th preview-release, which will be supported for the following six months. This will allow developers to start using Iroha 2 to design their products and get a preview of some of the innovative functions that are coming soon.

Monthly preview-releases have been available since January 2022. The May 2022 release is different, though. The long-term support provided to this particular version is intended for early adopters to build up their projects. We shall, of course, forge ahead and break things, but the preview release № 5 will remain unchanged (save for security and bug fixes) for at least half a year. In addition to the main peer binary (written in Rust), we will also release the accompanying JavaScript, Kotlin and Java SDKs so that any complex projects that require a stable base can be built.

Our ongoing goal is to keep growing the community – and as always, everyone is welcome at our bi-weekly meetings and in our dedicated Discord chat; especially anyone who wants to build the best blockchain technology with us, and anyone who would like to use it. Every contribution idea will be considered. Let us work together on the future of Hyperledger Iroha!

May 18

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Staff Corner: Welcome to the new Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board chair, Accenture’s David Treat

By Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director at Hyperledger Foundation and General Manager, Blockchain, Healthcare and Identity for the Linux Foundation Blog, Governance, Hyperledger Foundation Staff Corner

Governance is crucial to enterprise-grade open source software development and to the mission of Hyperledger Foundation. While our community-elected Technical Steering Committee (TSC) is responsible for coordinating the technical direction of the Hyperledger Foundation and our project maintainers of the projects themselves, our Governing Board is the body that leads the foundation’s strategy, operations and marketing. Our Governing Board representatives are charged with ensuring transparency across our community, stability across our ecosystem and financial viability for our foundation. They also play an incredibly important role in helping us plan for the future in a fast evolving market.

Since its founding in 2016, Hyperledger Foundation has had two extremely committed and innovative Governing Board Chairs, Blythe Masters, former CEO of Digital Asset, who steered Hyperledger through its launch and early growth, and Robert Palatnick, Managing Director and Global Head of Technology Research and Innovation at DTCC, who served in this annually elected chair role since January 2019. Rob oversaw an exciting growth period for the foundation while shepherding us through a global pandemic. Now, it is my pleasure to welcome the next leader, David Treat, Senior Managing Director, Global Metaverse Continuum Business Group & Blockchain Lead at Accenture.

*David Treat, Senior Managing Director, Global Metaverse Continuum Business Group & Blockchain Lead at Accenture and the newly appointed chair of the Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board*

David was a natural choice to be elected as the next chair of Hyperledger Foundation. He has been a member of the Governing Board since day one and is not only a leader in our community but across the industry. He is an active board member of a number of groups, including the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Global Blockchain Business Council and ID2020 Alliance, and is a member of the World Economic Forum C4IR Global Blockchain Council, a program advisor for the Chamber of Digital Commerce, and co-chair of the New York Fintech Innovation Lab.

He has been a driving force in Accenture’s commitments to Hyperledger Foundation, which ranges from being a leading sponsor of Hyperledger Global Forum and of Diversity, Civility and Inclusion efforts at the annual event to providing extensive technical and marketing leadership to ongoing and extensive code contributions. As a company, Accenture is a top five code committer and has contributed development resources to launching and maintaining Hyperledger Bevel and Hyperledger Cactus.

I personally look forward to partnering with David in building out new projects and communities that will advance identity, interoperability and the coming wave of blockchain-enabled innovation. We share a commitment to decentralization and enabling greater individual user transparency control and power. Working alongside with our board and our global community, it will be our joint mission to ensure that Hyperledger plays a key role in building not just the open source technologies for the new internet of ownership but also the market for Web3 and beyond.

“I have deep respect and appreciation for Blythe Masters and Rob Palatnick’s leadership of the Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board as well for all Governing Board members working to build the Hyperledger ecosystem and this market over the past six from early code concepts to a mature enterprise software landscape. Our community has established a critical foundation for the future. I look forward to serving and supporting the entire Hyperledger community as Board Chair as we continue to accelerate and deliver on the potential of distributed ledger technology to redefine the infrastructure that supports commerce, currency, communications, and identity particularly as the Metaverse Innovation wave advances. While it will take a lot of work to build open, shared and interoperable platforms, the Hyperledger community and leadership are charging ahead to deliver on this vision.” – David Treat, Senior Managing Director, Global Metaverse & Blockchain Lead at Accenture and the newly appointed chair of the Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board

Please join me in welcoming and congratulating David Treat as our new Hyperledger Foundation Governing Board chair! Click to tweet: Congratulations to @Accenture’s @DBTreat, new Governing Board chair for @Hyperledger Foundation

May 09

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Developer showcase series: Matthew B. White, IBM

By Hyperledger Blog, Developer Showcase, Hyperledger Fabric

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Matthew B. White, Lead Software Engineer at IBM.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

Can’t really recall when I first heard of blockchain or indeed cryptocurrency; but it was the new thing that obviously was creating interest. My natural curiosity wanted to know more about this.

There were a couple of internal staff briefings I listened into to get some background; plus the people who were involved were ones I’d worked with previously and respected. This wasn’t some random idea that had no real benefit. As luck would have it, I saw an opening to move into a newly created team at IBM focusing on blockchain and went for it.

Since that point I’ve not looked back and have worked on a number of aspects of Hyperledger Fabric and IBM’s offerings.

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

Currently it’s as a contributor and maintainer of Hyperledger Fabric. It’s been a really enjoyable time working with open source.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger to focus on in the next year?

There are two big challenges I believe. Collaboration and applicability

Blockchain requires a collaboration between ‘entities,’ companies, people, etc. A collaboration that many previously wouldn’t have thought of. For example, the many companies that form a supply chain. It’s this collaboration that is key to blockchain and needs to remain a focus as Hyperledger technologies are adopted more widely. For example, how do multiple companies adopt Hyperledger Fabric for supply chain solutions?

There are many use cases, from the token space (tracking both assets & currency) to supply chain tracking and auditing to distributed identity, where the concepts and features offered by a blockchain can help. Likewise, there are many Hyperledger projects and labs. That leads to the applicability challenge. For the outside user looking in, it can be hard to know how to apply these technologies to real solutions. For example, how does Hyperledger Grid work with Hyperledger Fabric for supply chain solutions? How do I use Hyperledger Indy to get distributed identity linked with my existing systems?

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

Like any new technology, there is the initial “it’s the best invention since the wheel” hype. The key thing to blockchain is that to make it worthwhile requires the collaboration mentioned before. That’s the hard part and the part we need to focus on.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

The one we haven’t thought of yet!

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

The lack of trust between parties.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

As mainstream as, say, a database or a rest server.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

You’re not writing the code for yourself; you’re writing for either your future self or more likely somebody else. Don’t add a comment saying “this next line calls an array sort function,” but add a comment “why does this array need to be sorted? What is the scale of the data and how did that affect your choice of sort algorithm? Are there controls in the system that would change the assumption about the scale of the data.”

When a problem or change needs to be made in the future, the developer then can see what your thought processes were for writing the code you did.

What technology could you not live without?

Lego

May 02

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Hyperledger identity community completes development of DID:Indy Method and advances toward a network of networks

By Char Howland and Daniel Bluhm Blog, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

New Hyperledger Indy updates pave the way for verifiable credentials to be issued and read on different networks, affirming Hyperledger as the most advanced framework for interoperable, decentralized identity

Earlier this year, the Government of British Columbia announced the “Indy DID Method Code With Us” challenge. The goals were to align the content that can be written in the DIDDocs published on Hyperledger Indy networks with the current World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Decentralized Identifier (DID) Specification and to add a namespace element to DIDs (and other object identifiers) published on Hyperledger Indy networks, so users know on which of the many Hyperledger Indy networks the DID was created.

Hyperledger Indy is an open source project housed at the Hyperledger Foundation providing the codebase to create distributed networks, purpose-built for SSI and verifiable credentials. Networks built on Indy are some of the most mature and tested networks with self-sovereign identity (SSI) capabilities; but since they were developed before the publication of the World Wide Web (W3C) DID Specification, they needed to be brought into alignment.

While the Indy DID Method began as a community development effort within Hyperledger Indy, it needed a push to completion; hence the Code With Us challenge from the government of British Columbia. Indicio was awarded the challenge and went on to develop and complete several of the remaining components.

The result is that a credential issued using any Hyperledger Indy network (such as Indicio, Sovrin, Findy, Bedrock, IdUnion, etc.) can be processed by any verifier. This is because the objects in the verifiable presentation reference the Hyperledger Indy network used by the issuer. The Indy:DID Method lays the groundwork to make this possible.

This advancement in interoperability is significant. While issuers still need to be anchored in the specific Indy ledger of their choice, holders can seamlessly receive verifiable credentials from issuers rooted in different Hyperledger Indy networks, and be able to create verifiable presentations from any combination of those credentials. Likewise, verifiers will be able to verify presentations that include claims derived from credentials rooted in multiple Indy networks. The Indy:DID Method paves the way for Hyperledger Indy credentials to scale by allowing Indy networks to seamlessly interoperate, creating a global “network of networks” effect.

With the groundwork complete, networks and agent frameworks now need to incorporate the Indy:DID Method. This community adoption will increase the viability of the Indy and Aries project stack and position it to be the globally dominant way to issue and share verifiable credentials in a multi-ledger world.

To learn more about did:indy and the next steps for implementation, you are welcome to join the leading contributors from Indicio and BCGov at the Hyperledger Identity Implementers Call taking place, Thursday, May 5, 8:00 AM US Pacific (3pm UTC)

Note:

The Indicio team would like to thank BC Gov for funding this work and Dominic Wörner, another contributor to the Code With Us challenge, for his work on Indy VDR.

Where to find the work:
- PR to Indy Node: https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node/pull/1740
- PR to Indy VDR: https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-vdr/pull/84
- Indy HIPE about did:indy: https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-hipe/tree/main/text/0164-did-indy-method
- Demo: https://github.com/Indicio-tech/did-indy-demo
Where to ask questions:
- Daniel Bluhm (Indy Node questions)
  - Discord: dbluhm#9676
  - GitHub: https://github.com/dbluhm
- Dominic Wörner (Indy VDR questions)
  - Discord: domwoe#9301
  - https://github.com/domwoe

Apr 28

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Bosch leverages open source model; teams with PolyCrypt to tackle blockchain for the Economy of Things

By Hyperledger Blog, Hyperledger Labs

Read the full case study here.

Some years ago, researchers realized that IoT devices would need to buy and sell from one another. In this “Economy of Things,” the items to be traded will include power, data, and connectivity. Most transactions will be fast, low value, and high frequency.

For a company like The Bosch Group that’s active in everything from autonomous vehicles to thermal plants, the Economy of Things will touch many lines of business. That’s why, in 2017, the company’s advanced research group, Bosch Research, was looking to find a way to scale up blockchain transactions to support the Economy of Things.

Bosch set out to do meet that requirement by leveraging a specific, step-by-step open source strategy for developing new markets:

Identify a requirement
Set goals
Consider the terrain
Build a partnership
Pick a suitable license
Use open source archetypes

The goals were to lead an effort to create standards for the Economy of Things and to build a framework where different partners could work together.

A survey for likely partners led the Bosch team to Perun, an early layer-2 protocol that passes state information off-chain through virtual channels. Bosch joined forces with several academics to implement this protocol and start creating an ecosystem.

As part of the process, Perun needed a stable home where everyone could access the latest code, and other people could find it. Hyperledger Labs provides a space where developments can be started without the overhead of creating an official Hyperledger project.

In Q3 2020, Perun was welcomed into Hyperledger Labs, and development has continued with work from the team at Boch and PolyCrypt GbmH, a startup spun out of the Technical University Darmstadt, where much of the academic research behind Perun began.

The Bosch team was eager to talk about its approaches and contributions to Hyperledger Foundation. To that end, they worked with Hyperledger marketing and others in the Perun community on a case study that details not only the business and technology challenges they’ve set out to tackle but also the strategic way they are leveraging open source development to advance the industry for all.

We never know what technology will turn into the Next Big Thing.

Perhaps Perun will be one of them, powering billions of micropayments between IoT devices or enabling people to shop with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) that are still on the drawing board today.

Read the full case study here.

Apr 26

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Developer showcase series: Navil Rodrigues, Coding Bootcamps

By Hyperledger Blog, Developer Showcase, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Transact

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Navil Rodrigues of Coding Bootcamps.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain?

To the newbies starting out their journey in the blockchain space, I would suggest having a strong grasp on fundamentals like cryptography and data structure like merkle tree to know how blocks are linked with each other. After which I would suggest reading the book “Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas” to enhance your knowledge. Later on you can choose a public or private blockchain that interests you.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on, and let us know what was it that made you want to get into blockchain?

I am currently working as a full-time blockchain developer at Mckinley Rice. My most of the time goes architecting and implementing smart contracts for Ethereum and sidechains. I also have experience in developing and designing ICO contracts and bridging solutions to connect different chains. The “State of trust,” “Decentralization” and “Immutable data records” made me fall for this technology.

What Hyperledger project(s) are you working on? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger technologies?

I have worked on a supply chain finance platform built upon Hyperledger Fabric that was developed to provide a common platform for suppliers, anchors and financial institutions. I keep an eye on what’s new in Hyperledger Fabric to stay updated with the latest developments. I would say the community behind the Hyperledger umbrella development is very active and its industry experts.

What are the main differences between developing blockchain applications in Hyperledger Fabric or Ethereum?

There are several differences. For instance, the consensus algorithm or architecture of a popular public blockchain like Ethereum or Polygon is very different from Hyperledger Fabric as they serve different purposes. Likewise, when it comes to NFT assets on a public network like Polygon versus a private network like Hyperledger Fabric, public networks allow integration with cross-chain networks and DeFi. For example, RealBig NFT assets are tied into both crypto exchanges and DeFi platforms for staking.

What do you think is most important for the Hyperledger community to focus on in the next year?

The most important thing Hyperledger can focus on is increasing the number of transactions per second. Also, we like to see Hyperledger tools and libraries that are currently at incubation stage become active.

As Hyperledger’s incubated projects start maturing and hit 1.0s and beyond, what are the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result from your perspective?

Hyperledger Transact is a really interesting product. We need methods for quickly creating distributed ledger technology (DLT) applications.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

Blockchain is going to solve many problems. However, I am looking forward to seeing blockchain being adopted and implemented more by private companies.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger technologies and/or blockchain in 5 years?

We hope to see robust widely accepted Hyperledger DLT applications especially among enterprise companies.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Spend more time on architecting a solution thoroughly than developing it.

What technology could you not live without?

The Internet.

Apr 22

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Sustainability by design: Takeaways from Linux Foundation Research “The Carbon Footprint of NFTs” report

By Hyperledger Blog, Research

As Tom Brady, DCComics and Visa will tell you, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a class of assets underpinning the worlds of digital art, digital collectibles, metaverse gaming, and beyond, that have exploded in popularity. At the same time, they have been met with skepticism, tainted by market hype, and associated with energy-intensive Proof of Work (PoW) consensus mechanisms.

Diving into this tug of war between innovation and sustainability, Linux Foundation Research, in collaboration with Hyperledger Foundation and Palm NFT Studio, just released a detailed report on the current and future state of carbon consumption and NFTs that explores the environmental impact of NFTs, investigating how and why NFTs can have varying carbon footprints depending on underlying technology stacks.

As this report, “The Carbon Footprint of NFTs,” confirms, not all blockchains are created equal. Case in point: Recent estimates suggested that mining activities associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are responsible for emitting 114.06 megatons of carbon dioxide per year. That’s as much as the entire country of the Czech Republic.

This report looks at problematic energy use for specific types of blockchains and then dives into several emerging blockchain technologies that can reduce or eliminate these harms. It goes on to provide guidance on steps and strategies to not only increase the sustainability of blockchain but leverage the innovation of NFTs and smart contracts to tackle climate change itself.

Researched and written to provide an objective look at pitfalls and potentials of NFTs, this detailed report includes interviews and insights from climate experts, economists, technologists and companies on the front line of NFT and blockchain innovation. The key takeaways are outlined in the graphic below:

The report’s final words are “The choices are up to you,” underscoring that there is a path to sustainability with NFTs. The key is putting the climate front and center in design, development and deployment decisions taking place right now.

Download the full report to find out more about the pathway to NFT sustainability.

Apr 22

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Hyperledger Foundation Teams with Palm NFT Studio on Deep Dive into the Carbon Footprint of NFTs

By Hyperledger Announcements

Announces report from Linux Foundation Research on the current and future state of carbon consumption and NFTs

SAN FRANCISCO (April 22, 2022) – Today, in honor of Earth Day, Hyperledger Foundation, the open, global ecosystem for enterprise blockchain technologies, announced the publication of the report “The Carbon Footprint of NFTs: Not All Blockchains Are Created Equal.” This Linux Foundation Research report, developed in collaboration with Hyperledger Foundation and Palm NFT Studio, provides an extensive look at the environmental impact of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and delves into how and why NFTs can have varying carbon footprints depending on underlying technology stacks.

“For all the excitement about the potential of NFTs to create new value and traceability as digital assets authenticating everything from art and collectibles to products in the supply chain, there is equal consternation about climate impact of the blockchain mining enabling them,” said Daniela Barbosa, Executive Director, Hyperledger Foundation, and General Manager Blockchain, Healthcare and Identity at the Linux Foundation. “As champions of innovation and openness, Hyperledger Foundation views this report as a critical look at the pitfalls and potential of NFTs and, more importantly, a way to put climate considerations front and center in this fast-moving market.”

This extensive report includes an analysis of the carbon impacts of Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus mechanisms as well as an overview of technology alternatives for reducing energy consumption, underscoring the impact different blockchain decisions make on the climate. It goes on to provide guidance on steps and strategies to not only increase the sustainability of blockchain but leverage the innovation of NFTs and smart contracts to tackle climate change itself.

“Defining a problem is the first step to solving it,” said Hilary Carter, Vice President of Research at the Linux Foundation. “Researching and writing this report showed us the double-edged reality of NFTs but also gave us the opportunity to map out new approaches that can lead to a sustainable, even beneficial NFT future. Addressing climate change will include rethinking when, where, and how we deploy technology and, in this case, how we can pivot to climate-forward practices in both the deployment and application of NFTs.”

Key takeaways from the report include:

Approximately 80 percent of NFTs are transacted via Ethereum which currently uses the energy intensive Proof of Work consensus mechanism. Ethereum is transitioning to Proof of Stake in 2022.
The NFT ecosystem is evolving with other lower carbon footprint blockchain options already available, as well as layer 2 solutions that are less energy intensive and more scalable.
The entire blockchain ecosystem must shoulder the responsibility for environmentally sound solutions.
Verified offsets should be employed for a fully carbon-neutral solution. Align projects with certified environmental projects will benefit communities and foster cycles of positive reinforcement in scale and investment.
Embedding energy and climate disclosures in platforms allows users to make informed choices about using one blockchain or sidechain over another.

“This report comes at a critical moment in the evolution of NFTs,” shared Co-Founder and CEO of Palm NFT Studio Dan Heyman. “As they gain traction with enterprise-grade businesses and fans alike, the volume of NFTs minted for any given program shifts from numbering in the thousands to hundreds of thousands and into the millions. It’s imperative that we implement solutions to negate the environmental impact. We’re motivated by the findings of the Linux Foundation research report, and hope they serve as a catalyst for more innovation in our industry, and ultimately a more environmentally conscious blockchain.”

The full “Carbon Footprint of NFTs: Not All Blockchains Are Created Equal” report as well as a one-page visual recap of 12 top takeaways are available for download here.

About Hyperledger Foundation

About the Linux Foundation