Category

Hyperledger Indy

Jun 05
1

Meet the Hyperledger Summer 2018 Interns Part 1

By | Blog, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha

Back in March, we announced the return of Hyperledger’s Summer Internship Program. This year, we have 12 interns, which is more than double what we had last year! We’re very proud of this program, as it offers students one-on-one mentorship from some of the leading technologists in our community, as well as it builds their development portfolio of projects that will feed into the larger Hyperledger ecosystem. The students applied to work on an extensive line-up of internship projects proposed by our community mentors.

Today, we’d like to introduce six of the 12 interns, provide information on what they will work on and help you get to know them a bit better. We asked each intern a few questions including:

  1. How did you first become interested in blockchain, and why are you excited to work on Hyperledger and your project in particular?
  2. How do you see blockchain technology evolving over the next five years?
  3. If there’s one or issue you hope blockchain can solve, what is it and why?

Let’s see what they had to say!

Amar Singh

Pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Math and Computer Science at the University of Virginia

Hyperledger intern project: Algorithmic Dispute Resolution in Construction

  1. A few years ago, a good friend of mine told me that the next iteration of the internet was coming and it was going to be decentralized. At the time, we were both taking a class on internet protocols and had recently attended a lecture on the OSI model (a conceptual model for understanding the different layers for dot com internet protocols). A breakdown of the model revealed inefficiencies due to centralization (for example, the control of domain names), but we had been taught that these inefficiencies were necessary due to the economies of scale of technology companies. The possibility of a new system designed to solve these inefficiencies piqued my interest. After a few months of reading, I decided to fully commit myself to studying blockchain protocols. Since I went down the crypto rabbit hole, I have been impressed by the pace of progress in this space and the quality of output. After spending the past two semesters researching blockchain protocols at the University of Virginia, I was drawn to Hyperledger because of its emphasis on designing modular and interoperable blockchain solutions. Hyperledger’s architecture emphasizes a separation of the blockchain components, thereby enabling developers to build flexible blockchain applications that can easily interface between different consensus protocols, data storage modules, and communication patterns. For my project, I will construct an off-chain dispute resolution framework that leverages Hyperledger’s modular approach. I am especially excited to dive into Hyperledger’s architecture and explore the ways by which applications can optimize performance-security tradeoffs by incorporating a diverse set of tools/frameworks.
  2. Over the next 3-5 years, I expect the internet’s current structure to be overhauled and replaced by blockchain protocols. As brilliant teams around the world continue to collaborate and develop at an impressive pace, I expect that many of the problems that prevent the viability of blockchain solutions will be solved (e.g.., scalability, privacy, custody, UX). I am optimistic about the future of this space and excited to start contributing.
  3. Today, search engines like Google and social media giants like Facebook maintain an overwhelming amount of power and influence over the rest of the world. Even so, many people undervalue privacy as a basic human right, but I expect this to change over the next few years. There’s a Snowden quote that comes to mind: “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like arguing that you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” I believe that advances in homomorphic encryption and multi-party computation coupled with blockchain innovation will provide liberation in the form of increased privacy.

Arijit Sen

Pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Apex Institute Of Technology in Bhubanshwar, India

Hyperledger intern project: Python Library for Hyperledger – Iroha

  1. I came across the concept of blockchain in my college. I found myself attracted to the whole concept of a decentralized system that is void of any 3rd party interference. I am really excited to work on Hyperledger since it addresses some critical business issues regarding blockchain. Also compared to other blockchain ecosystem platforms, Hyperledger had a smaller learning curve.
  2. Blockchain has already taken the technology world by storm. I am pretty sure that we will be seeing most of the current technology stacks shifted to blockchain. However, I am concerned regarding an uncontrolled blockchain system. Just imagine a scenario getting a perfect AI agent, powered to thrive over blockchain and letting him learn and work as much as he can. Maybe he will just develop himself as an unstoppable entity since there is no single server or database to hold him. Too much fiction? Well I doubt it. The growth on both AI and blockchain is exponential. I won’t be surprised if something like that happens.
  3. Blockchain can solve a lot of issues in the world. Just imagine a legal evidence system where all the legal documents and evidence can be put into a secure blockchain platform. Not even the wealthiest criminals could tamper with the evidence or forensic findings. It could power an unbiased law and order system. Or an unbiased voting system where no party can do any discrepancies during the election. Or it could secure payment transaction for overseas without any 3rd party interference. Blockchain opens up a thousand possibilities.

Kuzma Leshakov

Pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Innopolis University

Hyperledger intern project: Hyperledger Identity WG Onboarding and Auth

  1. The first time I became interested in blockchain was couple of years ago when I heard about the decentralization concept and its implementations in Bitcoin and Ethereum. I am excited to work on the Hyperledger because of the following opportunities:
  • to work closely with community experts and developers to learn the open-source culture and skills
  • to advance knowledge in the distributed ledger design and one of its form, the blockchain
  • to get a teamwork experience with distributed, international colleagues

The project I chose is Hyperledger Indy, a distributed ledger purpose-built for decentralized identity. This project allows getting both practical and theoretical experience in blockchain development under the supervision of leading field experts. In particular:

  • to master skills in both Python and Rust programming languages, cryptography
  • to become familiar with the concept of Decentralized Identifiers (DID) and implement applications using it
  • to learn up-to-date software production techniques
  • to advance in creating and using tests as a professional developer
  • to get code reviews and advices on the best practices of documenting and structuring code

Throughout the internship, I will be making important contributions to the Hyperledger community, the Indy codebase, and the entire decentralized identity ecosystem. It will be an important step for me on becoming a professional software engineer.

2. I see blockchain technology becoming significantly used by public institutions (e.g., banks, universities). Also, I hope it will become more user-friendly and, as a result, more people will get involved in its development. Besides, some improvements should be made in blockchain-based systems (e.g., Bitcoin, Ethereum) with respect to its logs storage, which already takes a significant amount of memory.

3. One issue I hope blockchain can solve is a decentralized identity. Today’s main identification method requires users to login into every application (e.g., Facebook, Amazon) they interact with. Therefore, each user has dozens of login/password sets to remember (which also should be changed periodically). It is important to have a single and decentralized identity, as it will increase user’s security and user’s experience.

A V Lakshmy

Pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Madras in India

Hyperledger intern project: Extended Support for EVM and and Tooling in Hyperledger Fabric

  1. I am an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras), India. Being a Computer Science student, I like to keep learning about new technologies. I first learned about blockchains by reading about Bitcoin, and other blockchain platforms, in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet. I was amazed at the way blockchains could utilize distributed ledgers to eliminate the need for trusting third-parties in transactions! More recently, my uncle told me about the Hyperledger Summer Internship Program. I viewed this as a great opportunity to work on a project relating to blockchain technology, the talk of the town these days! During this internship, I am going to be working on a small portion of the integration of EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) into Hyperledger Fabric. This project has really interested me because I will get to learn about two different blockchain platforms, Hyperledger Fabric and Ethereum, and understand their similarities and differences. Moreover, this is the first time I will be engaging in open source development, and I am pretty sure this will be a great learning experience for me!
  2. Blockchains have the potential to completely change the way businesses, governments and societies function. I envisage a future where money-related transactions will be carried out in real time using blockchains. Tracking the movement of goods in the supply chain will become completely transparent. Each person will have a unique digital ID on the blockchain, which can be used not only for authentication on a global scale, but also to keep personal information safe and secure. But, in order to live up to its potential, blockchain technology will have to deal with challenges such as scalability, regulations, and so on. To incorporate blockchain technology into their current legacy framework, companies will have to do a complete revamp,  which will obviously be very expensive. For widespread acceptance of blockchains, a change in mindset of the public will also be required. If we are able to come up with ways to deal with these problems, blockchains will surely revolutionise the world!
  3. In today’s world, there is a lot of corruption in business transactions. Bribing and under-the-table dealings have become very common. Many times, people who are supposed to receive money don’t actually receive it, as it is pocketed by some middle-man. Blockchains provide a distributed ledger to store information about transactions in a tamper-proof manner. So, blockchains can be incorporated into businesses, making all transactions completely transparent. Every transaction can be seen publicly, which will discourage people from taking bribes, or pocketing others’ money. And, wrongdoers cannot try to cover up their shady transactions by trying to change the contents of the ledger, as they will surely be caught by others on the blockchain during the verification process. Thus, I feel, blockchains may be an effective way to curb corruption!

Ahmad Zafar

Pursuing a Masters degree in Computer Science at Information Technology University in Pakistan

Hyperledger Intern Project: Running Solidity Smart Contracts on Hyperledger Fabric or Vice Versa

  1. After completing my Bachelor degree in computer science, I started working in the industry for almost two years. But my future plan was something else. I wanted to do research in different fields of computer science. I explored different things, which are exclusively demanding related to my field. The specific field that attracts me a lot is blockchain. After discussing with fellow teachers in Information Technology University, I learned about the opportunity to be a Research Associate, working on blockchain technology. It was a great pleasure for me to work on my desired direction. Here I started my research on Hyperledger Fabric, in which I explore many things. My aim is to learn to write smart contracts in an efficient way, so that I can deploy applications on Hyperledger Fabric. The project that I selected enabled me to enhance my skills related to it.
  2. In my country, Pakistan, most of the people involved in the computer science field do not know about blockchain. Until a few months ago, most of the people considered Bitcoin as blockchain. Many think that blockchain is only used for cryptocurrencies. But the truth is, blockchain can deal with storing and transmitting information, automating the purchase process, improving transaction flow, securing the supply chain, etc. Nowadays people are well aware of blockchain through seminars conducted at universities and industry level. And many companies have started working on it. Furthermore, in my university, ITU, a lab is being set up only for blockchain research. 35 to 40 people will be hired including research associates, Phd Students and experts. Blockchain is providing enhanced transparency, greater scalability and better security. For these reasons, people are traversing to it to achieve various innovations to increase profits and strengthen relationships across the supplier. And in the next five years blockchain will be commonly known to IT people.
  3. Nowadays banks are using some middle organizations for getting services from other companies for scalability such as payments of utility bills, loading mobile accounts, transactions among cross banking, etc. For example, banks uses a middle organization for telecom services to recharge the mobile account. Blockchain can eradicate the middle organization from the banking system. We can use Hyperledger Fabric channels, and shared ledger and smart contracts for this purpose. This leads to a decrease in time, extra charges and improves traceability of transactions.

Sanchay Mittal

Pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at BML Munjal University in India

Hyperledger intern project: UTXO Transactions in Iroha

  1. I first heard about blockchain from my brother Sachin Mittal. It’s astonishing features like distributed, decentralised, shared, authenticated, auditable, immutable and many more fascinated me and drove me to understand the very depth of this technology. Learning more about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, I got to learn its limited implementation in the financial exchange. But, with the advent of Ethereum, things changed. Smart contracts showed the pathway of automating and regulating industries on DLTs. But many restrictions such as the principle of hierarchy of any organization were compromised and every network started its own cryptocurrency just to fabricate itself with the name ‘blockchain’. The problem was solved by Hyperledger Iroha, which is a permissioned blockchain with prebuilt commands hence easy to incorporate into infrastructural projects requiring DLTs. My project allows me to understand this very innovative technology and to add a new feature, a UTXO based transaction model that is currently used by bitcoin
  2. We are witnessing the beginning of a new chapter in human history, just like when the internet came along and changed so many aspects to the way we used to live. Based on the current rate of evolution, I believe blockchain solutions could reach their full potential in the next five years. The maturity of blockchain has started to soar, its development is starting to have a material impact on every individual. The true nature of equality is here, which means of power is changing, thinking is changing. Blockchain and its development are starting to have a material impact on everyone’s life. Governments have already stated that they have much interest in blockchain technology and they want to learn more about its development for adapting it to their local financial systems. Unlike the dot-com bubble, I think blockchain technology is here to stay and it will be adopted by almost every field globally. The global leaders in government, finance, banking, IoT, supply chain, manufacturing, technology are acknowledging its potential.
  3. The issue I hope blockchain can solve is our centralized internet and social networks. People, without even blinking an eye, sign and agree to privacy policies that give the mainstream companies the power to use their data in any way they see fit. Privacy and security of individuals depend on their behavioural data which can be hacked (Experian) or misused (Cambridge Analytica). With blockchain, users will be able to choose whom to show their  content to and be able to set their own restrictions while determining how and where it gets distributed. They’ll also have full control of their private data. No more storing it on centralized servers and losing it when these servers go down or when their security gets breached.

We’re happy to welcome such a solid group of young people to the community and look forward to seeing all that they contribute. We hope you join them in the effort by contributing to Hyperledger projects. You can plug into the Hyperledger community at github, Rocket.Chat the wiki or our mailing list. As always, you can keep up with what’s new with Hyperledger on Twitter or email us with any questions: info@hyperledger.org.

Be sure to check back for the second post in this series that will highlight the other six interns we will have this summer!

 

May 10
3

Enterprise Blockchain Demos & Presentations at Consensus

By | Blog, Events, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Sawtooth

Next week we will be busy at Consensus, happening in New York May 14-16. Consensus is a great event for our members to set the stage and speak to what’s happening in the Hyperledger community, as production blockchain deployments have been heavily increasing. Many members will demonstrate applications of distributed ledger technology for financial services, supply chain, identity management and various other use cases.

These demos highlight true collaboration and maturity of Hyperledger technologies across many industries. As we head farther into 2018, we’re excited to see how these frameworks continue to evolve and improve business processes across many other industries.

Hyperledger members will showcase the following demos and presentations at the Hyperledger booth (#315):

Monday, May 14

10:20am: IntellectEU – Enterprise Blockchain integration with IoT devices and back office systems by Hanna Zubko, CEO and Paulo Rodrigues, Global Business Developer Manager and CEO Portuguese Offices

This presentation will cover a real customer case leveraging Blockchain technology to offer a new insurance product: a flexible pay per mile insurance based on the real car mileage and condition, calculating the insurance premium rate and quoting the offer based on the accumulated data received from the IoT device installed in the car. This pilot project is based on Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 and IntellectEU’s Catalyst integration solution. Catalyst serves as a hub for connecting the insurance database, emulated IoT device, end user application and the ledger itself. Catalyst listens to the changes on all data sources and based on the business rules applies the corresponding logic.

12:30pm: SecureKey – Using Hyperledger Tracking to Make Frictionless Digital Identity Possible by Matt Jaksic, Business Development

SecureKey will demonstrate Verified.Me, its digital identity network launching later this year that will put consumers in control of how they validate their identities. Collaboratively created by leading organizations across many different sectors including Canada’s leading banks, Verified.Me will enable consumers to privately, securely and conveniently share information from trusted providers such as banks, telecommunications companies and governments. The platform is designed to empower the consumer by giving them the ability to explicitly choose what information to share, when to share it and with whom. Come see how Verified.Me can change the way we get things done faster and securely online, in person and on the phone!

1:00pm: Thales eSecurity – Enterprise ready high security blockchain by Jon Geater, Chief Technology Officer and John Velissarios, Managing Director at Accenture

Accenture has developed an enterprise ready blockchain solution with enhanced cryptographic security from Thales eSecurity Hardware Security Module. It provides an immutable audit trail proving hardware, software and documentation authenticity and compliance across supply chains. Using CryptoSeal and FPGA fingerprinting technology, they are able to give materials in the supply chain a unique identity to prove authenticity. This combination of technologies allows someone to securely and transparently track all kinds of transactions, between OEMs, suppliers, manufacturers and customers. This dramatically reduces time delays, added costs, and human error that affect the surety of transactions underpinning our supply chains today.

3:00pm: Omnitude – Seamless Blockchain Integration by Martyn Brougham, COO Americas, and James Worthington, Blockchain Consultant

Omnitude is a middleware plug and play blockchain built on Hyperledger Fabric, for use across the whole spectrum of enterprise and eCommerce platforms and allows eCommerce businesses to adopt blockchain quickly and efficiently, without needing to replace current systems. The presentation will show how Omnitude allows eCommerce and enterprise businesses to adopt blockchain quickly and efficiently, without needing to replace current systems.

3:50pm: DLT Labs – DLT Wallet by David Freeman, Director

DLT Labs will be showing off their DL Digital Wallet, a sophisticated peer-to-peer network powered by Hyperledger Fabric, offering security, efficiency, and convenience for an overall improved customer experience. DL Digital Wallet facilitates seamless account overview, accommodates company loyalty programs and management, and is integrated with leading e-payment service providers. The cost of each transaction is fixed irrespective of value transferred and received and is significantly less costly than other charges by any payment network today.

Tuesday, May 15

10:20am: ScanTrust – “Cambio” Your Coffee: Using Blockchain to Drive Ethically Sourced Coffee by Tobias Kars, VP of Product & Delivery and Nathan J. Anderson, CEO/Co-founder

As tech-savvy and socially conscious consumers seek more information about the sustainability of the products they consume, businesses need to adapt and find ways to track their relationships with suppliers and communicate this to their customer base. This demo highlights how ScanTrust and Cambio Coffee, a leading Asian direct trade specialty coffee company, leverage Hyperledger Sawtooth to deliver greater supply chain transparency within the coffee industry and bring to light trusted product information.

12:30pm: Soramitsu – Hyperledger Iroha by Makoto Takemiya, Co-CEO

Hyperledger Iroha 1.0 is close to being released and has many new features and architectural differences from previous versions. In particular, a new consensus algorithm, YAC, has been developed that allows for full Byzantine fault tolerance. Predefined commands to perform common tasks, such as creating and transferring assets, allow programmers to quickly build applications on top of Hyperledger Iroha. Come by to see what’s new with Hyperledger Iroha!

1:00pm: Evernym – Verifiable Credentials with Hyperledger Indy and the Sovrin DLT by Drummond Reed, Chief Trust Officer and Judd Bagley, Sr. Communications Director

Evernym will share a live demonstration of the use of Verifiable Credentials on the Sovrin DLT, powered by Hyperledger Indy. The demo will include a brief overview of key concepts, then show actual business cases for how a self-sovereign identity owner can be issued verifiable digital identity credentials into a mobile digital wallet and then present them to relying parties who can verify them by checking public keys on the Sovrin ledger. The result is much simpler, faster, more secure, and more privacy-respecting digital identity as well as powerful new types of decentralized online relationships. Evernym personnel will be in attendance for Q&A during and after the demonstration.

2:10pm: Oracle – Hyperledger Fabric in Enterprise-Grade Cloud by Deepak Goel, Sr Director, Software Development

Oracle’s blockchain cloud service, built on Hyperledger Fabric, provides a hardened enterprise-grade platform for building blockchain applications and enabling existing enterprise applications to use distributed ledgers and trusted transactions. In this demo, they will show how it enables rapid experimentation and provides a production-ready blockchain infrastructure to realize successful use cases in production environment with high availability, enterprise security, dynamic scalability, and ease of operations built into the platform. They will walk you through the tools in the operations console and demonstrate how Hyperledger Fabric configuration, operations, and monitoring has been simplified and how developers and IT operations can be more productive leveraging Oracle’s blockchain cloud service as their Hyperledger Fabric platform.

3:50pm: Greenstream Technology – Blockchain Meets Cannabis: Emerging Tech for an Emerging Industry by Manu Varghese, Chief Product Officer and Jim Anastassiou, VP Engineering

Greenstream Network is an industry-wide gateway solution that will allow Licensed Producers, Retailers, Regulators and other industry stakeholders to communicate, interoperate and transfer assets and value through the Canadian cannabis ecosystem. The emerging Cannabis ecosystem faces a plethora of challenges like Trace and Track of the goods through the supply chain, auditing and compliance issues, process integrity, slower payments and challenges with respect to identity validation. Greenstream provides three key solutions: Supply Chain Integrity, Payments and Settlements Engine and Self Sovereign Identity. The Greenstream ecosystem is based on a permissioned DLT model and uses Hyperledger frameworks such as Hyperledger Fabric, Burrow and Indy to achieve specific objectives. This talk outlines the options considered and the factors evaluated; challenges faced and the learnings learned etc.

Wednesday, May 16

12:15pm: B9lab – Someone needs to build it: closing the Hyperledger talent gap by Elias Haase, Founder

Every day, B9lab gets requests for Hyperledger Fabric developers, from concept-phase startups to major enterprises. However, as these requests grow, so does the need for thorough vetting and certification in the Hyperledger talent market. How do you know if the developers you are hiring are as good as they say they are? Come see this presentation to find out!

12:45pm: REMME – REMME WebAuth – passwordless authentication powered by blockchain by Alex Momot, CEO

REMME WebAuth is a first and one of the basic DApps in the REMME ecosystem. This demo will demonstrate how users (employees or clients) could log in into the browser service via REMME in one click. REMME is an access management solution that obsoletes passwords. For each device users generate certificates. Once it is installed on a device it enables one-click authentication on the service that has REMME integrated with. REMME WebAuth could be integrated with any service, from crypto exchange to big enterprises’ intranets or web services.

1:45: Altoros – Decentralization of P2P Securities Transfer Implemented on Hyperledger Fabric by Greg Skerry, Blockchain Solution Architect, Trainer

This presentation will cover details of a working blockchain project implemented for a National Settlements Depository Institution: decentralized platform for peer-to-peer securities transfer and keeping the records of securities owned by each holder. The solution developed on the Hyperledger Fabric framework keeps an immutable, auditable chain of records reflecting securities ownership transfers. This presentation will focus on the product functionality: how the platform works; how it can be adapted for transferring different types of assets or rights, incl. intangible assets.

In addition to these demos and presentations, several Hyperledger members including MedicalChain, Embleema and Change Healthcare will participate in the “State of Blockchain in Healthcare” panel at Consensus 3:10pm on May 15.

You can also join Hyperledger on the last evening of Consensus from 6-8pm at the Meetup: “The Hyperledger Greenhouse: Meet Developers Building Blockchain Frameworks” to get a chance to network and hear directly from developers of several Hyperledger frameworks! Tracy Kuhrt, Community Architect at Hyperledger, will provide an overview of the frameworks and tools that you can leverage for your enterprise blockchain solution. Then breakout sessions will give you the opportunity to have a deeper discussion to learn more about Hyperledger Fabric, Sawtooth (Seth), Indy and more. Please bring your burning questions about how to get started and participate in the Hyperledger community.

Be sure to follow Hyperledger on Twitter for the latest updates at Consensus. We look forward to an exciting week and seeing everyone there!

 

Apr 26
2

The Dutchess Project: A Tale of True Interoperability Between Multiple Blockchains

By | Blog, Events, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Sawtooth

As we gear up for Consensus 2018, and for the great Building Blocks Hackathon, we thought it would make sense to resurface a blog on The Dutchess Project from last year’s hackathon that demonstrated radical interoperability across the following technologies:

  • Public Ethereum accounts to transfer money
  • Solidity for business logic using smart contracts (the Dutch Auction, Escrow, Release of Funds)
  • Quorum (JP Morgan’s fork of Ethereum) for encrypting transaction payloads
  • Hyperledger Sawtooth simulating a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) for Chess moves validation, approvals and auditability.
  • HACERA’s Self-Sovereign Decentralized ID implementation (using DIDs) for registering identity tokens and creating a permissioned and public identity chain (for secure verifiable claims)
  • Microsoft Azure cloud deployment

Ten project teams took home awards from the Consensus 2017: Building Blocks Hackathon. Among them was Dutchess, a chess game built with four blockchain technologies by Jonathan Levi, Sergey Klimenko, Elan Perah and Michael Bogdanov from the HACERA team. This project beautifully illustrates how different blockchains can handle isolated responsibilities while still working together within a larger system.

Dutchess won two challenges in total. It won the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance challenge to “use an Enterprise Ethereum Alliance stack to create a decentralized Dutch auction network with secret bid matching” and the Microsoft challenge to “leverage Microsoft Azure as part of your blockchain project.”

The HACERA Dutchess team: Jonathan Levi, Sergey K, Michael B and Elan Perah receiving the Enterprise Ethereum Award from Jeremey Millar (Consensys) and Sandra Ro (CME Group)

We spent an hour with Jonathan to learn about the Dutchess project and what blockchain developers can learn from it. At the beginning of the hackathon, Jonathan wanted to build something useful, participate in as many of the challenges as possible, learn new technologies, and apply blockchain development expertise from his company to a project. Jonathan is the founder of the blockchain technology company HACERA, which works with several blockchain technology stacks to provide secure identity and access control management of users, devices and data on blockchains. This experience shines through in the way the Dutchess project uses multiple blockchains in an auditable and verifiable chess game with identity protection and privacy preservation.

Dutchess uses four blockchain technologies: Ethereum, Quorum, Hyperledger Indy, and Hyperledger Sawtooth

There are six steps to each Dutchess game, which use a total of four different blockchain technologies to implement. The project uses Ethereum for payments, Quorum for smart contracts, Hyperledger Indy for identity management, and Hyperledger Sawtooth for auditable computing. In addition, the project uses three instances of Microsoft Azure. Here’s how the project leverages these technologies across the six steps.

Step 1: Bidding in a dutch auction and sending funds into escrow

Two users, each of whom has some funds in Ethereum, can choose to play a chess game that’s preceded by a dutch auction. During the auction, whichever player agrees to pay the auction fee wins an advantage on the game board — the winner plays with all their pieces while their opponent plays without a queen.

This auction uses one instance from Microsoft Azure that runs Quorum, which is a permissioned version of Ethereum. Quorum’s smart contract contains the logic of the auction and the ability to place blocks periodically. Since a dutch auction is a reverse auction, the smart contract starts with a high offer and reduces the offer with each block placed. The offer starts with 100 Ether. At the next block, it’s 90 Ether. At the next block, it’s 80 Ether, and so on until a player places a bid to accept the offer. By accepting the offer, this player wins the auction, gets the advantage, and sends the value of the bid into escrow via Quorum.

Step 2: Registering IDs for Dutchess accounts

With the bidding done, each player moves on to register an ID for his or her Dutchess account. The IDs allow players to play without exposing their actual identity. To the user, it just looks like they are choosing a username, but behind the scenes the game is registering a Sovrin identity using Hyperledger Indy. This registration process outputs a signed token and a waive token. The waive token is the one that you see in the game interface.

Step 3: Play chess with the ID token

Now, players start playing chess with their tokens. Each game has a white player, a black player, a transaction processor, and an auditor. Each time a move is made by a player, the move is sent to the transaction processor, which checks to ensure that the move is valid. If the move is valid, the transaction processor then posts the state of the board to an instance of Hyperledger Sawtooth in the form of a string. This string documents every position of every piece on the board at the end of each turn. Since a new string is committed to Hyperledger Sawtooth at the end of every move, all Dutchess games can be replayed and analyzed one move at a time by reading the string data back from the blockchain.

Step 4: Update ranking

When players complete a game, the auditor sends a ranking agent information about who won, who lost, or if the game was a stalemate. The ranking agent keeps every outcome of every Dutchess games in the Hyperledger Sawtooth blockchain, where it can be queried. The ranking agent also keeps a tally of player rank among all registered Dutchess player IDs.

Step 5: Payment resolution with claims, proof of winning, and proof of ranking

To collect payment after winning a Dutchess game, the winning player must make a claim that he or she won the game. If the claim is true, the ranking agent will issue a signed proof of the win, which the player can take to Quorum for payment resolution.

Players can also use the ranking agent to output a proof of rank instead of a proof of win. For example, the top ranked player could make a claim that they are #1. The ranking agent would issue a signed proof, that yes, they are #1. This proof could be used to prove a player’s rank to some other system, such as a betting system based on player rank.

Step 6: Release funds

As long as the proof from the ranking agent says the player did indeed win the game, Quorum pays Ether out to the winner from the escrow account setup in step 1.

The architecture of Dutchess achieves isolation of responsibility

Here is a diagram of the architecture of Dutchess, as presented at the Consensus 2017: Building Blocks Hackathon:

The beautiful thing about this architecture is how the game completely isolates multiple types of responsibilities. You can play chess in an anonymous way because the chess game doesn’t know your Ethereum account. You can know who won a game without having to know how the game was won because Hyperledger Sawtooth has the play-by-play while the ranking agent only knows wins, losses, stalemates, and a calculated player rank. This allows players to generate a proof of win or proof of rank from the ranking agent without it having to know anything about the amount of Ether being awarded. Finally, Quorum is able to distribute funds without needing to know anything about how wins and rankings are established. Quorum only needs to know that a player won, or that a player ranks at a certain position. Thus, each responsibility within the game is completely isolated.

Implications for business applications built on blockchain technologies

The Dutchess project shows how blockchain developers need not worry about consolidating all functionality of their business applications to one blockchain. Instead, different organizations with different responsibilities can work with the best blockchain for their specific type of responsibility. Sometimes that will be a permissionless blockchain like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Other times that will be a permissioned blockchain like Hyperledger Sawtooth or Quorum. Points of interoperability can be established between one isolated responsibility and another.

The key takeaway here is that any time a business application requires something as a condition of something else, one blockchain can handle the something, and hand a proof of it off to another blockchain that can handle the something else. This architecture of isolated responsibilities can be applied to any kind of real-world application in areas such as auctions, trading, futures, betting, stock trading, equity, asset management, and more.

Next steps for facilitating interoperability between multiple blockchains

In less than two days, the Dutchess team achieved a lot. They made it clear that the problem of working with more than one technology stack is not a technical one. Blockchain developers can start thinking out of the box, connecting blockchains, and doing it securely. A huge amount of value can be created just by facilitating interoperability.Before you start your next blockchain application, be sure to check out the Dutchess game at https://hacera.com/demos.

We can’t wait to see what folks build this year with Hyperledger technologies at the Building Blocks Hackathon prior to Consensus on May 12-13. You can see all the ways Hyperledger will be involved at Consensus here – hope to see you there!

Apr 13
1

Developer Showcase Series: David Conroy, National Association of REALTORS

By | Blog, Hyperledger Composer, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy

We’re back to our Developer Showcase blog series, which serves to highlight the work and motivations of developers, users and researchers collaborating on Hyperledger’s incubated projects. Next up is David Conroy, an R&D Lab Engineer at the Center for REALTOR Technology, as part of the National Association of REALTORS. Let’s see what he has to say!

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

Before getting started working in blockchain, I strongly recommend taking the time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the many different types of blockchain technologies available today. A great way to accomplish this is to take a look at all of the fantastic open source tools out there that already exist for blockchain development. Understanding the basics prior to beginning the development process can be critical to the success of your future applications. My two favorite development tools currently are Hyperledger Composer (https://github.com/hyperledger/composer), and the Truffle Framework (http://truffleframework.com/). If you are looking for online resources for blockchain education, The Linux Foundation has released a self-paced primer on distributed ledgers that is incredibly thorough and also free of charge.

David Conroy, National Association of REALTORS


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 work for CRT Labs, a research group operated by the National Association of REALTORS®. Our lab focuses on emerging technologies that could potentially affect real estate. Personally, I have been interested in blockchain since I began learning and writing about Bitcoin in 2013. Since then as the technology has matured, it became increasingly apparent that my personal interests were quickly aligning with my professional ones. This is due to the massive implications that blockchain poses for the real estate industry.  In addition to payment and escrow, blockchains could potentially provide the mechanisms for establishing identity, enforcing of contracts, and improving the overall quality of property records.

What project in Hyperledger are you working on? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

At NAR, we are building a Hyperledger Fabric based system that will allow us to more effectively understand how our association interacts with its 1.3 million members. This project will allow us to tie together all of the various educational courses taken, committees served on, and events attended by our members despite the fact that this activity is occurring at over 1,400 local associations nationwide. Our legacy systems lack the functionality to provide a complete, accurate, and verifiable report that shows the complete picture of a members activity within our association. Now with the assistance of blockchain that granularity of reporting is something we are able to provide. This data can then be used to better provide services, aid in leadership development, and allow for increased recognition of our highly involved members. We took advantage of the Hyperledger Composer tool to define our business network and get our initial proof of concepts running quickly.

In addition to the work I’ve done at NAR, I have also entered into multiple blockchain-related programming competitions in my spare time to keep current on latest development trends. Most recently, I was a part of a team that took first place in IBM’s Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence Global Hackathon. Alongside the cash prize, the top finish came with a opportunity to present at IBM’s Think 2018 Conference. The submission was a Hyperledger-based, IBM Watson-powered parking reservation marketplace called The Spot Exchange.

In addition to the for-profit business models, I’ve also looked at Blockchain for social good. For the past few months, I have been working on a project that uses blockchain and artificial intelligence for social good. Specifically – providing identity, education, and family reunification services for Refugee Resettlement. For more information please visit ProjectSafeHarbor.com.

Locally, I serve as co-chair of the two Chicago-based blockchain meetups, Hyperledger Chicago & Chicago Blockchain in Real Estate.

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

One area where I believe blockchains have an enormous potential is improving the state of our current systems for establishing our digital identities. Consumers today are unrealistically expected to securely manage login information across hundreds of different websites. Unfortunately, this burden leads to poor password hygiene from many users, while slowly turning popular websites into an ever-growing target for hackers looking for large amounts of personal information. Two projects that I am following very closely that look to solve some of these issues in a decentralized and self-sovereign manner are Hyperledger Indy, and the Ethereum project uPort.

 

 

 

Mar 28
1

(3.28.18) CoinDesk: Hyperledger Tech Heats Up Ahead of Software Debuts

By | Hyperledger Burrow, Hyperledger Composer, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Sawtooth, News

Just six minutes.

That’s how long Hyperledger executive director Brian Behlendorf had to get former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet up to speed on blockchain. Spurred by a special request from the nation’s lawmakers, Behlendorf was one of multiple blockchain experts called to the country to talk about the merits of the technology and the ways in which it could modernize the copper-rich nation’s mining supply chain.

More here.

Dec 21
5

Onward and Upward for Hyperledger in 2018

By | Blog, Hyperledger Burrow, Hyperledger Cello, Hyperledger Chaintool, Hyperledger Composer, Hyperledger Explorer, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Quilt, Hyperledger Sawtooth

As 2017 comes to a close, it’s beneficial to look back and reflect on the progress we have made, and where we will see evolution and growth in the new year. This year, the world has acknowledged distributed ledgers and smart contracts as transformative technologies with tremendous potential to impact how business is conducted in many industries. Within  Hyperledger, the technology foundations have now been set. In the coming year, that will turn into more production software releases, real world implementations, and the first real business returns on our collective intellectual and financial investment.  

Below are a few observations from the year, milestones and thoughts on what will come in 2018.

Blockchain maturation and more production implementations

  • Companies large and small, IT vendors and end-user organizations, consortiums and NGOs, everyone took notice of Hyperledger in 2017 and made moves to get involved. This was evident in the ever increasing Hyperledger membership, which nearly doubled in size. We sold out of our Premier memberships at 21 total, adding eight new companies just this year including SAP, American Express, Daimler, Change Healthcare, NEC, Cisco, Tradeshift and Baidu. Hyperledger now has support from 197 organizations, and remains the fastest growing open source project ever hosted by The Linux Foundation. This has given Hyperledger a very solid footing financially, enabling us to double the resources we can apply towards building and supporting the community in 2018.
  • We have grown our Associate Member ranks to include organizations as diverse as Mercy Corps, the National Association of Realtors, the Illinois Blockchain Initiative, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore.  These relationships are key to extending Hyperledger’s reach into different sectors and environments.
  • Attesting to our focus on developing code suitable for enterprise use, this year saw the launch of the first production ready Hyperledger blockchain framework, Hyperledger Fabric 1.0. This was a true community effort pulling together contributions from more than 100 different developers and 30 different companies. As one result, we have 45 members listed in our Vendor Directory, providing products and services based on Hyperledger technology.
  • We have seen substantial uptick in POCs, pilots and production implementations of Hyperledger technologies, many of which are being tracked at the PoC Tracker on the Hyperledger website. Just a few examples of projects building in Hyperledger code include:
    • The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Ubin, implementing an RTGS system;
    • the soon-to-be-production diamond supply chain tracking system implemented by Everledger, SAP and IBM;
    • and the Plastic Bank, a plastics recycling initiative.

In 2018, we will see:

  • more 1.0 milestones made next year by various Hyperledger projects;
  • more production deployments: for example, Change Healthcare, has announced an early 2018 go-live for their claims processing blockchain built on Hyperledger Fabric;
  • a growing Hyperledger staff and presence at events, creating more content, supporting a growing set of projects and working groups;
  • and more membership growth. We are reaching out to a broader set of industries than ever, and are deepening our relationships with our existing members.  

The fast expanding developer and end-user community will continue to grow

  • Demand for developers, and developer interest in Hyperledger, has exploded. We are now seeing sold-out Hyperledger meetups in dozens of cities, strong attendance at our semi-monthly HackFests held around the world, thousands of participants on our email and chat networks, non-stop requests for speakers at conferences, and of course more and more code flowing into our repositories.
  • We launched the first Hyperledger online training course this year: Blockchain for Business – An Introduction to Hyperledger Technologies. Currently, there are  44,966 total enrollments, and 1,074 learners have completed the course with a passing grade. We have an average of 2,500 new enrollments per week. The course is second only in growth to the original intro to Linux operating system course launched by The Linux Foundation. We have now launched a Training and Education Working Group to involve core maintainers and other volunteers in the development of additional courseware.
  • 150 people participated in the Hyperledger Member Summit in November in Singapore, representing 83 different member companies.  

In 2018, we will see:

  • the development of additional training courses and certification options;
  • more frequent and larger face to face developer gatherings;
  • and more developer activity across additional Hyperledger projects.

Integration, standards and interoperability will take center focus

In 2018, we will see:

  • The industry get a lot more serious about interoperability above the layer of the DLT, and looking for simple and open cross-blockchain approaches, leading them to Hyperledger Quilt and the rest of our community;
  • and our projects explore integration and interoperability with each other even further, allowing a greater number of options to be available to developers.

We’re proud of the work our vibrant and diverse community has accomplished this year. We have made great strides and could not be more thankful to everyone who has played a part in this success. It goes without saying the stakes can be even higher in open source, it’s a balance of creating a welcoming, collaborative environment and at the same time making sure everyone gets a say and all voices are heard. We strongly believe the open governance model that Hyperledger naturally inherited from The Linux Foundation has been a crucial part of the continued success of the project.

Finally, you can stay up to date with all Hyperledger news here or follow us on Twitter. We hold regular hackfests for Hyperledger, so be sure to check out the events page and join us for the next one. You can also plug into the Hyperledger Community at github, Rocket.Chat, the wiki or our mailing list.

Here’s to a successful 2018!

 

Nov 06
3

VIDEO: Hyperledger, A Greenhouse Incubator for Blockchain Projects

By | Blog, Hyperledger Burrow, Hyperledger Cello, Hyperledger Chaintool, Hyperledger Composer, Hyperledger Explorer, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Sawtooth

Hyperledger hosts and incubates multiple technology projects, all advancing business blockchain frameworks and modules through open source collaboration. Currently, Hyperledger hosts 6 open source frameworks and 3 open source blockchain tools.

To introduce the concept of blockchain technologies and the Hyperledger organization, we created an explainer video illustrating Hyperledger as a greenhouse incubator for these open source blockchain projects. Intended to serve as a starting point suitable for all audiences wanting to learn about Hyperledger and business blockchain technologies, we hope this 3-minute explainer video will shed light on the following:

1. A distributed ledger is a common system of record with no central authority.

A ledger contains a record of your transactions, along with other transactions in the network. Distributed ledgers are multi-party databases with no central trusted authority. Blockchains can be used to record promises, trades, transactions or simply items we never want to disappear.

2. It’s vitally important to know that your copy of the ledger is identical to everyone else’s

All businesses participating in a commercial ecosystem need a ledger to contain a record of transactions. As a result, across the global market there are ledgers that organizations and individuals alike must trust. Mirrored exactly across all nodes in a given network, distributed ledgers allow everyone in an ecosystem to keep a copy of the common system of record, free from discrepancies. Nothing can ever be erased or edited; parties can only add to the ledger.

3. Hyperledger provides the underlying open source software, on top of which anyone can set up blockchain apps and services to meet business needs.

Hyperledger is incubating and promoting enterprise grade, open source business blockchain technologies, including distributed ledgers, smart contract engines, client libraries, graphical interfaces, utility libraries, and sample applications. Built under technical governance and open collaboration, individual developers, service and solution providers, government associations, corporate members and end users alike are all invited to participate in the development and promotion of these thriving technologies.

4. Hyperledger is a global, cross-industry, collaborative open source consortium.

With 170+ member organizations working across industries and competitive lines, and 400+ code contributors, Hyperledger is the fastest growing consortium in the history of The Linux Foundation’s collaborative projects. Just like you see in this greenhouse, with the help of The Linux Foundation and Hyperledger’s open source approach, everyone does their part to ensure the success of the whole, nurturing these blockchain ecosystems for evolution, expansion and continued growth.

The most renowned leaders in finance, healthcare and supply chain across the globe trust Hyperledger to build their business blockchain technologies. Who will you trust with your trust network?

We encourage developers to join our efforts on Hyperledger via github, Rocket.Chat, the wiki or the mailing lists. You can also follow Hyperledger on Twitter or email us with any questions: info@hyperledger.org.

 Watch and Share the video:

Sep 26
3

Hyperledger Gains 10 New Members

By | Announcements, Hyperledger Burrow, Hyperledger Cello, Hyperledger Composer, Hyperledger Explorer, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Sawtooth

Growth in open blockchain consortium doubles over past year with more than 160 members

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – (September 26, 2017) – Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies, announced today that 10 new organizations have joined the project. As a multi-project, multi-stakeholder effort, Hyperledger incubates eight business blockchain and distributed ledger technologies including Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Iroha, Hyperledger Indy, Hyperledger Burrow, Hyperledger Sawtooth, among others.

“The immense growth we’ve seen this year signifies an acceptance and understanding of Hyperledger blockchain solutions for business,” said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. “These new diverse members have agreed to contribute their leadership and energy to the Hyperledger community. We thank them for their support and validation as we drive towards more PoCs, pilots and production uses cases of Hyperledger technologies in the enterprise.”

Hyperledger aims to enable organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating an enterprise grade, open source distributed ledger framework and code base. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, IoT, supply chain, manufacturing and technology. The latest General members include: AMIHAN, ChongQin Xichain Technologies, DLT Labs, GameCredits, Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), Medicalchain and ScanTrust.

Hyperledger supports an open community that values contributions and participation from various entities. As such, pre-approved non-profits, open source projects and government entities can join Hyperledger at no cost as Associate members. Several Associate members joined this month including Mercy Corps, Taiwan Fintech Association and Zhejiang University.

New member quotes:

AMIHAN

“Amihan is proud to be the first Filipino company to join Hyperledger,” said Winston Damarillo, Chairman of Amihan Global Strategies. “We believe that blockchain and smart contracts are the key to preparing Southeast Asia for the digital age, and we are committed to working with the Hyperledger community to push the limits of blockchain technology. We look forward to working with our clients – some of the largest enterprises in ASEAN – to transform finance, healthcare, retail, and customer loyalty in one of the fastest-growing regions of the world.”

DLT Labs

“At DLT Labs, our corporate purpose is to create, integrate, and support dynamic distributed ledger solutions that equip our clients with the tools to capitalize on unrealized potential within their businesses,” said Loudon Owen, Chairman and CEO of DLT Labs. “With over 30 dedicated in-house Blockchain developers and over 20 proprietary enterprise products, DLT Labs has formed globe-spanning partnerships with leading edge consultancies, manufacturers, financial institution and innovative service providers. Our global presence spans the United States, the United Kingdom, China, India, Canada and Singapore. DLT is excited at the opportunity to join Hyperledger’s nexus of leaders, creators, and dreamers, and looks forward to forming long-lasting relationships with the forefront of blockchain innovators.”

GameCredits

“We are excited to join the company of industry leaders in Hyperledger,” said Alex Migitko, COO, GameCredits. “GameCredits is focused on a unique blockchain use case, catering to the $100 billion gaming industry and its massive audience of almost every third person on earth, governed by complex relations between various stakeholders. Our solutions will be of immense interest to adjacent industries and we believe we will be able to make a unique contribution to the alliance.”

Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX)

“We are today at the beginning of the blockchain revolution, witnessing in real time an explosion of ideas, experiments and projects that aim to completely redesign global capital markets for the new era,” said Nick Cowan, CEO, Gibraltar Stock Exchange. “The Gibraltar Stock Exchange’s membership in Hyperledger provides us with an exciting opportunity to connect, share ideas and collaborate with like minded innovators and industry leaders, without boundaries, with the aim of building consensus for the new global framework.”

Medicalchain

“Medicalchain puts health records back into the hands of patients, and that’s not possible without the secure storage and transfer of data. Using Hyperledger, Medicalchain will allow patients to control permissions to their health records – who gets access to them, what information they get access to and for how long,” said Dr. Albeyatti, co-founder of Medicalchain. “We are thrilled to join the Hyperledger community and will continue working to bring blockchain technology to the healthcare industry.”

ScanTrust

“Today’s connected consumers are demanding more transparency and with global supply chains becoming more complex, achieving this a challenging task,” said Nathan Anderson, CEO and Co-Founder, ScanTrust. “ScanTrust secure identifiers connect physical goods to the internet for enhanced supply chain security; by adding open blockchain technology to this foundation, brands will be able to protect and track their products using mobile phone authentication. We look forward to collaborating with the Hyperledger community to develop a scalable, enterprise-grade blockchain framework.”

To see a full list of member companies, visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/about/members. If you’re interested in joining Hyperledger as a member company, please visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join

About Hyperledger

Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger under the foundation. To learn more, visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/.