Hyperledger

Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger Project Announces 30 Founding Members and Code Proposals To Advance Blockchain Technology

Distributed Ledger Effort Establishes Open Technical Governance Structure, Receives Influx of Code Contribution Proposals

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 9, 2016 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today is announcing new members from across the industry, a formal open governance structure and technical updates to the new Hyperledger Project.

The intent to form the Hyperledger Project, an open source project to advance the blockchain digital technology for recording and verifying transactions, was announced at the end of 2015. Founding members of the initiative represent a diverse group of stakeholders, including: ABN AMRO, Accenture, ANZ Bank, Blockchain, BNY Mellon, Calastone, Cisco, CLS, CME Group, ConsenSys, Credits, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), Deutsche Börse Group, Digital Asset Holdings, Fujitsu Limited, Guardtime, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, IntellectEU, J.P. Morgan, NEC, NTT DATA, R3, Red Hat, State Street, SWIFT, Symbiont, VMware and Wells Fargo. 

Global Business Leaders Contribute to Hyperledger

Since announcing the intent to form in December, the Hyperledger Project has received proposed code and technology contributions from several companies, including Blockstream, Digital Asset, IBM and Ripple. Other community members are contemplating contributions of their own.

As with all open source projects, technical contributions are welcome at any time, from anyone and will be reviewed by the newly formed Technical Steering Committee (TSC), which is comprised of industry-leading technical experts. The TSC is committed to open and transparent discussion, processes and decision-making. This group will oversee the project’s technical direction and working groups as well as manage multiple contributions to the code base. The TSC will be evaluating proposed contributions and go through an open community process to build out the initial and unified codebase.

Digital Asset has donated the trademark for the ‘Hyperledger’ name to the Linux Foundation. Use of the mark will be managed exclusively by the Governing Board of the Hyperledger Project with the approval of the Linux Foundation.

The Hyperledger Project is a collaborative effort to focus on an open platform that will satisfy a variety of use cases across multiple industries to streamline business processes. Peer-to-peer in nature, distributed ledger technology is shared, transparent and decentralized, making it ideal for application in finance and countless other areas such as manufacturing, banking, insurance and the Internet of Things. By creating a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers, virtually any digital exchange with value, such as real estate contracts, energy trades, marriage licenses, can securely and cost-effectively be tracked and traded.

“The Hyperledger Project has ramped up incredibly fast, a testament to how much pent-up interest, potential and enterprise demand there is for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “Working on its own even the largest global corporation could not match the speed at which our new members are moving blockchain technology forward. Such a broad effort and investment is sure to have a great impact on our personal and professional lives.”

Members Adopt Open Governance Structure

The Hyperledger Project today is also announcing its ratified governance structure. A Board of Directors will guide business decisions, marketing and ensure alignment between the technical communities and members. Nominations are currently open for TSC members.

To stay connected or to be part of the technical discussions, be sure to subscribe to the TSC or Technical-Discuss mailing lists at lists.hyperledger.org. Hyperledger Project is a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project.

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

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The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact
Jennifer Cloer
The Linux Foundation
503-867-2304
jennifer@linuxfoundation.org

Accenture

“The development of Blockchain technology has the potential to redefine the operations and economics of the financial services industry,” said Richard Lumb, chief executive – Financial Services, Accenture. “It emerges at an important time, as the industry strives to be leaner, more efficient and more digital. Open source development will accelerate the innovation and help drive the scalability of this technology, and we are proud to support the Hyperledger Project.”

CME Group

“As the development of distributed ledger technologies continues to accelerate, CME Group is especially pleased to become an active participant in the Hyperledger Project,” said Sandra Ro, Executive Director, CME Group. “We are continually working to develop and deliver innovative, efficient market solutions to our global client base.”

Deutsche Börse

“Deutsche Börse is taking a dynamic approach and will actively participate in the Hyperledger Project. Being part of it is an important element of our ambition to utilize Distributed Ledger Technology to bring effective solutions to our clients,” said Ashwin Kumar, Group Head of Product Development, Deutsche Börse Group.

Digital Asset

“The formation of Hyperledger marks a milestone in the advancement of distributed ledger technology,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset. “Digital Asset believes that it is vital for shared infrastructure to be open to critical inspection and collaboration, and this initiative will be pivotal in driving the global adoption of solutions to real-world problems.”

DTCC

Robert Palatnick, Managing Director, Chief Technology Architect, DTCC: “As a member of Hyperledger, DTCC is helping to play a leading role in creating the governance and standards for distributed ledger technology. Our goal is to ensure that new opportunities are in the best interests of the post-trade process and consistent with our long-term goals of mitigating risk, enhancing efficiencies and driving cost reductions for financial market participants. Open source and industry-wide collaboration are essential to realizing the full potential of distributed ledger technology and to avoid creating a disconnected maze of siloed solutions.” 

Fujitsu

“We at Fujitsu are confident that blockchain technology will accelerate disruptive change, not only in the financial industry, but also in many other industries where it will be put to active use,” said Takahito Tokita, Corporate Executive Officer SVP, Head of Financial Systems Unit, Integration Services Business of Fujitsu Limited. “We are delighted to work through the Hyperledger Project to contribute to the development of this technology.”

Hitachi

“Hitachi would continuously invest our resources and actively support the HyperLedger project. With numerous global organizations backing the effort, we believe blockchain will quickly mature and spread to more industries,” said Masayoshi Ogawa, President of Financial Information Systems Division, Information & Telecommunication Systems Company at Hitachi, Ltd.

IBM

“As a broad, open initiative inclusive of many different blockchain experts, the Hyperledger Project will advance the open blockchain standard for uses across many industries,” said Jerry Cuomo, vice president blockchain, IBM. “By focusing on an open platform, there’s no limit to the types of applications and frameworks that will one day be built on top of it.”

Intel

“Blockchain technology can help enable secure transfer of digital assets among known and unknown parties,” said Imad Sousou, vice president and general manager, Open Source Technology Center, Intel Corporation. “Intel looks forward to collaborating with the Hyperledger Project to advance the security, scalability, and privacy of transactions in enterprise and permission-less systems.”

R3

“R3 is excited to bring our deep bench of subject matter experts and broad network of over 40 global financial institutions to the Linux Foundation’s distributed ledger initiative,”  said David Rutter, R3’s co-founder and CEO.  “Working together, we can drive innovation across financial services that will impact our industry in the same way the Internet revolutionized media and entertainment.”

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SAN FRANCISCO, CA – (December 17, 2015) – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, today announced a new collaborative effort to advance the popular blockchain technology. The project will develop an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and free developers to focus on building robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support business transactions. Early commitments to this work come from Accenture, ANZ Bank, Cisco, CLS, Credits, Deutsche Börse, Digital Asset Holdings, DTCC, Eris Industries, Fujitsu, IC3, IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel, J.P. Morgan, London Stock Exchange Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), R3, State Street, SWIFT, VMware and Wells Fargo.

Many of the founding members are already investing considerable research and development efforts exploring blockchain applications for industry. IBM intends to contribute tens of thousands of lines of its existing codebase and its corresponding intellectual property to this open source community. Digital Asset is contributing the Hyperledger mark, which will be used as the project name, as well as enterprise grade code and developer resources. R3 is contributing a new financial transaction architectural framework designed to specifically meet the requirements of its global bank members and other financial institutions. These technical contributions, among others from a variety of companies, will be reviewed in detail in the weeks ahead by the formation and Technical Steering Committees.

Blockchain is a digital technology for recording and verifying transactions. The distributed ledger is a permanent, secure tool that makes it easier to create cost-efficient business networks without requiring a centralized point of control. With distributed ledgers, virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded. The application of this emerging technology is showing great promise in the enterprise. For example, it allows securities to be settled in minutes instead of days. It can be used to help companies manage the flow of goods and related payments or enable manufacturers to share production logs with OEMs and regulators to reduce product recalls.

“Distributed ledgers are poised to transform a wide range of industries from banking and shipping to the Internet of Things, among others,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. “As with any early-stage, highly-complex technology that demonstrates the ability to change the way we live our lives and conduct business, blockchain demands a cross-industry, open source collaboration to advance the technology for all.”

Distributed ledger systems today are being built in a variety of industries but to realize the promise of this emerging technology, an open source and collaborative development strategy that supports multiple players in multiple industries is required. This development can enable the adoption of blockchain technology at a pace and depth not achievable by any one company or industry. This type of shared or external Research & Development (R&D) has proven to deliver billions in economic value.

This collaboration is expected to help identify and address important features and currently missing requirements for a cross-industry open standard for distributed ledgers that can transform the way business transactions are conducted around the world.

For more information about the project and how to participate in this work, please visit: http://blockchain.linuxfoundation.org

Comments

ANZ Bank

ANZ CTO Patrick Maes said, “We are pleased to confirm our participation in the open ledger project as we recognise that there is currently no industry accepted, enterprise-grade blockchain framework today that is fit for purpose for our industry. Our objectives around blockchain initiatives are that we will seek to learn, explore and contribute to the development of a global framework with our ecosystem partners, and ANZ is uniquely placed in this regard since we operate in 34 markets.” Nigel Dobson, ANZ’s General Manager of Payments Transformation said he sees involvement with the project as an opportunity to explore and contribute to real-world, bank-grade applications of the technology and wider frameworks. “I see significant potential opportunities in the future to improve our customer experience and potentially deliver productivity gains by solving real business challenges, with initial use cases in payments and particularly correspondent banking.”

Cisco

“The Open Ledger project is a key turning point in the industry establishing enterprise grade blockchain technology. It’s key for the industry to enable an open developer community around blockchain and it’s great that so many colleagues are joining and supporting the effort to move the entire Internet community forward,” said Dave Ward, SVP and chief architect, Cisco Systems.

CLS

“CLS is pleased to participate in this broad industry-wide effort to standardize and advance Distributed Ledger Technology,” said David Puth, CEO of CLS. “A common DLT platform on which product specific solutions can be built is key to the successful adoption of this technology.”

Credits

“Distributed Ledger Technology is quickly becoming the most exciting industry to help build out,” said Credits CEO & Founder, Nick Williamson. “It’s initiatives like the open ledger project that will help cut through the noise stemming from the hype cycle and start bringing substance to this nascent industry.”

Deutsche Börse

“Deutsche Börse group sees great potential in blockchain technology, and is delighted to join this initiative. As a market infrastructure covering the entire value chain, we believe that the true value of the blockchain will only materialise as part of industry initiatives such as Hyperledger project,” Jeffrey Tessler, Member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Börse AG.

Digital Asset

“We are delighted that The Linux Foundation is providing a broadly-supported vehicle through which we can contribute the Hyperledger brand and enterprise grade blockchain solutions to the open source community,” said Blythe Masters, CEO of Digital Asset. “The resulting impetus will benefit our clients and the entire global financial services industry who are seeking to build business applications on a trusted foundation.”

DTCC

“DTCC, as an industry owned and governed financial infrastructure, shares the global interest in the potential of distributed ledger technology and is pleased to be part of this industry wide Hyperledger initiative to create governance, standards and ensure the core technology is open source and based on collaboration,” said Mike Bodson, President and CEO of DTCC.

IC3

“IC3 – Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts – is delighted to be a part of this initiative and bring the strengths of its team of academic researchers—rigorous security analysis, expertise in distributed systems and cutting-edge cryptography, and an interdisciplinary perspective—to this vibrant new community.” – – Ari Juels, Jacobs Institute, Cornell Tech; Andrew Miller, University of Maryland; Elaine Shi, Cornell University; and Gun Sirer, Cornell University.

IBM

“A broad, cross-industry and open source approach is critical to advance the potential for blockchain and make it mainstream,” said Arvind Krishna, Senior Vice President and Director, IBM Research. “Even beyond building out standards, creating common code will allow organizations to focus on creating industry-specific applications that enhance the value of this technology.”

Intel
“Open source software is very well suited to be the basis of highly-complex technologies that require secure transactions,” said Imad Sousou, vice president and general manager, Open Source Technology Center, Intel Corporation. “The open ledger project can help enable the industry to focus on a shared infrastructure to help create value and impactful innovation.”

London Stock Exchange Group

Moiz Kohari, Group Head of Technology Innovation, London Stock Exchange Group said: “LSEG is committed to an open source collaborative approach to the development of the building blocks for blockchain technology. We believe this technology has the potential to drive change across the industry but will need to be developed in partnership with clients and other industry participants under an open source approach. This needs to be done in a considered and rigorous manner to benefit the market as a whole.”

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG)

“The evolution of information and communication technology including blockchain is the origin of new market creation,” said Satoshi Murabayashi, Senior Managing Executive Officer and Group CIO, MUFG. “The new product and services supported by open innovation platform is key factor for Japan and world economy. MUFG supports this project for creating innovative financial services.”

R3

“R3 has long believed that an open source approach is the best vehicle for developing the foundational elements of a financial grade shared ledger that will benefit all market participants and their clients” said David Rutter, CEO of distributed ledger initiative R3, the largest bank consortium in history.  “We’re very excited to be a part of this effort led by The Linux Foundation, the marquee name in open source technology development.”

State Street

“Advancement in distributed ledgers can provide tremendous evolutionary opportunities in financial services, and drive new opportunities and efficiencies in institutional investing,” said Antoine Shagoury, global cief information officer at State Street. “The work the open ledger project is focused on is an important first step as coordinating open standards will help this technology achieve the critical mass it needs.”

SWIFT

“SWIFT is delighted to support this industry-wide effort to advance distributed ledger technology,” said Craig Young, SWIFT’s Chief Technology Officer. “Cooperation and collaboration – hallmarks of the SWIFT cooperative – will be key to ensuring the scalability and adoption of this technology.”

About The Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world’s top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.

The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.