Category

Hyperledger Indy

May 10
2

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
1

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
0

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
0

(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
4

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
2

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
2

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/.

 

 

Sep 25
0

DLT in Decentralized Identity

By | Blog, Hyperledger Indy

Guest post: Dr. Phil Windley, Sovrin Foundation

Since the dawn of the World Wide Web, we’ve been fixated on the concept of place. The entire language of the Web is about location: we visit Web sites using Web addresses. Consequently, it’s almost impossible for us to think there’s any other way. We build places where we expect people and machines (via APIs) to come, meet, and transact. The place metaphor leads to centralization. Facebook, Google, and Amazon are all places. The interactions on them are centralized and under the control of whoever owns the place.

Another way to think about online interaction is in terms of methods—ways of executing actions . Methods for interaction are called protocols. The Internet, domain name resolution, and email are familiar examples of systems based on protocols. Protocols define ways or methods for things to interact. They give the interaction a script, as it were, defining how an interaction plays out. “If you do X, then I’ll do Y.” “If you do X and then do Z, that’s an error.” and so on.

Protocols foster decentralization. By describing the method for interaction, a protocol gives anyone a way to participate. In addition, protocols naturally support interoperability and substitutability. Protocols are largely responsible for what Doc Searls and Dave Weinberger call the three virtues of the Internet:

  • Nobody owns it
  • Everybody can use it
  • Anybody can improve it

This contrast between place and protocol is evident in online identity. We treat identity as if it were something linked to a place. Every online identity you have was given to you by someone else.

This simple fact makes every online identity completely different from identity in the physical world where you exist first, independently, as a sovereign human being. In the physical world, identity emerges from relationships. Over time, humans have developed interaction patterns around how we identify ourselves to each other. In other words, identity in the physical world is a protocol.

Online identity systems are rigid and can only be used in the way their designers allow because places are prescriptive. In contrast, an identity protocol is fluid and flexible, supporting use cases the protocol designer never imagined. As an example, a protocol for identity could give rise to decentralized apps that let anyone share rides in their car without the overhead of a Lyft or Uber because the identity system would let others vouch for the driver or the passenger, independently, using a universally recognized standard.

How can we move online identity from place to protocol? A protocol for online identity would define how identifiers work and how anyone can create, manage, and exchange attributes and claims for those identifiers. A protocol for identity must be private, secure, interoperable, and open to everyone. The result is an identity network.

A protocol for identity relies on the combination of three important standards: decentralized identifiers (DIDs), verifiable claims, and a ledger that is available to all.

Decentralized Identifiers—DIDs allow anyone to create identifiers for anything. Furthermore, they are standard and interoperable. DIDs link to public keys and service endpoints. And because DIDs are pairwise pseudonymous to prevent correlation and preserve privacy, people will have hundreds or thousands of DIDs representing all of the various digital relationships to which they’re a party. These relationships might be with organizations they do business with, friends they interact with, or things they own.

Verifiable Claims—verifiable claims allow trustworthy assertions to be made about anything that has an identifier. Like DIDs, claims are standard and interoperable. Furthermore, they’re based on strong cryptography to bind the claim issuer, the claim subject, and the claim itself. Verifiable claims are combined with zero knowledge proofs for minimal disclosure. For example, when I need to prove to the bank that I’m employed by BYU, I don’t give them the claim. Instead I generate a proof—an incontrovertible certification of some fact—from the claim. The proof discloses only the information the bank needs. All this is done cryptographically so that no party to the transaction has any doubt whether or not the information is correct.

A Distributed Ledger—the ledger links a DID to associated keys and endpoints in a way that’s publicly discoverable. The ledger records information about claims (although not the claims themselves or any other private data). The ledger also supports claim and key revocation. The ledger is foundation for identity transactions.

A protocol for identity allows for ad hoc, decentralized online interactions that follow the patterns humans have developed for establishing trust in the physical world. This promises to unleash countless new decentralized products and services that will transform how people interact online. Joel Monegro wrote in his post on Fat Protocols:

By replicating and storing user data across an open and decentralized network rather than individual applications controlling access to disparate silos of information, we reduce the barriers to entry for new players and create a more vibrant and competitive ecosystem of products and services on top.

Moving online identity from place to protocol creates an open and decentralized network that reduces barriers to entry for new products and services that rely on identity to establish trust.